40.
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what plans his Department has to improve complaints procedures in the public services as part of the citizens charter.
We will shortly be announcing a citizens charter complaints task force with the aim of ensuring that all public services adopt the key principles of good complaints systems. People need to know how to complain and they must have confidence that their complaint will be dealt with quickly and fairly.
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what plans he has to place a statutory obligation on public services to operate a formal complaints procedure for service users.
I have no plans to place statutory obligations on public services in respect of complaints procedures. It is for individual organisations to ensure that their complaints systems conform to citizens charter principles. I refer the hon. Member to my reply of 17 March, when I indicated that we were going to establish a citizens charter complaints task force to encourage and support organisations in this aim. We will be making an announcement about this very shortly.
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many of the complaints mechanisms for public service users contained in the citizens charter programme have an independent element; and if he will list them.
One of the principles of the citizens charter is that public service organisations should have well publicised and easy to use complaints procedures with independent review wherever possible. Many public service organisations have an independent element in their own complaints procedures or are in the process of introducing one. By "independent" in this context, I mean a review procedure which is not part of the management hierarchy of the organisation concerned. Those which are known to my Department are:
Benefits Agency War Pensions Unit: War Pensions Committees;
British Gas: Gas Consumers' Council and OFGAS;
British Rail: Area Transport Users' Consultative Committee (co-ordinated through the Central Transport Consultative Committee);
British Telecom: OFTEL with recourse to a service provided by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators;
British Waterways Board: plans have been announced for the appointment of an independent ombudsman;
14 Electricity Companies: Electricity Consumers Committees and OFFER;
HM Prison Service: Prisons Ombudsman;
Home Office Immigration and Nationality Department: Complaints Audit Committee;
Housing Corporation: plans have been announced for the appointment of an independent ombudsman to deal with complaints from tenants of housing associations;
Inland Revenue: Revenue Adjudicator;
Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce: Agency Complaints Adjudicator;
London Buses and London Underground: London Regional Passengers Committee;
Department of National Savings: Adjudicator for National Savings;
Police Service: Police Complaints Authority (England and Wales); Procurator Fiscal Service (Scotland);
Post Office: Post Office Users' National Council with recourse to a service provided by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators;
Probation Service: Area Probation Committees;
Thirty-two Water Companies: Regional Customer Service Committees and OFWAT;
These mechanisms are principally concerned with complaints about quality of service or misconduct and do not investigate disputes about decisions relating to entitlement, for which there are separate, and in some cases independent, procedures of appeal, for example, tribunals.
I also understand that many local authorities have set up internal "independent" complaints units.
None of these arrangements affects the rights of individuals to pursue their complaints through the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, the Health Service Commissioners or the Commissioners for Local Administration.