As the new (interim) Ombudsman settles her feet under the table let us look at the absurdity of the handover protocol. From the 2023/24 Annual Report, new (interim) Ombudsman Rebecca Hilsenrath and new (interim) CEO Gill Kilpatrick have set out their stall.

To help you put their statements into context it would be useful to bear in mind the extremely low uphold rate. Less than a 1% chance of having a government complaint upheld (this includes partial upholds) and less than a 2% chance for complaints about the NHS.

Step 1. Praise your predecessor for their legacy.

We said farewell to our long-standing Ombudsman and our Chief Executive Officer, Sir Rob Behrens and Amanda Amroliwala. Given the extraordinary foundations they laid together, I was deeply honoured to be appointed to succeed Amanda as Chief Executive Officer and to support Sir Rob in his final year here. p8

Step 2. It’s all about you.


Our work is driven by a belief in the power of complaints. Complaints provide the opportunity to learn and to strengthen relationships between people and public services. As part of this, we seek impact in two ways – on the lives of individuals and in terms of improving public services. page 8

Well, the data tells us that barely 3% of the lives of individuals are impacted by a positive uphold, resulting in 97% of those who have taken the trouble to complain to the Ombudsman feeling let down once again. What of the impact on improving public services? The table below shows just 306 service improvements recommended from all the many thousands of NHS and Parliamentary complaints. There is no guarantee that any of these service improvements have actually been implemented as PHSO does not physically check follow-through and neither does the CQC.

Step 3. Makes changes to the processes the praised predecessor put in place.

This quote from CEO Gill Kilpatrick – page 10

This year we have made great progress in our modernisation programme. Our casework is at the core of what we do and we recognise the need to change our approach to meet the demands on our service. Throughout the year we developed plans for a new approach, based on value to the public.

Based on ‘value to the public’ is an ambiguous statement. Given that PHSO sucks up over £40 million of public money for very little return, it could be argued that the best value to the public would be to scrap the service altogether saving not just the money but the emotional roller-coaster of raised expectations. We will have to wait and see just what this new policy amounts to.

Step 4. Change the way satisfaction is measured.

An independent company helps us to collect feedback from our service users throughout the
year. In response to a recommendation from PACAC, this year we revised our Complainant and
Organisations We Investigate (OWI) surveys. This is to help us better measure the impact of changes to the service we provide and capture complaint outcomes. p48

Essentially, the previous ‘Service Charter’ which consisted of 16 measured criteria has been reduced to 7 statements to which those surveyed can either agree or disagree.

In 2023 to 2024, a total of 5,687 complainants completed the survey. Of those complainants, more than half felt that caseworkers gave them the opportunity to explain their complaint (69%), took the information they provided into account (57%), acted with sensitivity to the issues raised (65%), and explained the guidelines (67%) and information used in making their decision (59%). Less than half of respondents were satisfied with the overall time taken to reach a decision (44%) and the service received overall (48%).  p48

The same survey questions are given to both complainants and organisations investigated. Some mathematical algorithm is then applied to the responses to give an ‘impartiality indicator’. PHSO has always been reluctant to ask outright whether those who use the service found it to be impartial. If the Ombudsman treats both sides equally then the scores on the impartiality indicator should coincide. However, the organisations consistently score higher than the complainants and in the last measure taken (January to March 2024) were over 30% adrift. This fact was omited from the Annual Report but the data is available on their website.

Step 5. Praise your staff – bringing them on board for more changes to their work routines.


I thank the Board for their constant support, advice and encouragement and, most of all, the community of colleagues at PHSO who constantly move and impress both me and complainants with the professionalism and compassion they employ to bring understanding and resolution where services and relationships have failed. I am so proud to be your Ombudsman. Rebecca Hilsenrath Accounting Officer, Acting Ombudsman and Chair p9


As with other public sector organisations, we cannot stand still. One of the key things I have learned is that the only way to improve is by having great people. By working together, we can achieve great things. Gill Kilpatrick Acting Chief Executive Officer p11

There are various identifiable elements to this handover process. The first is that you must praise your predecessor (unless they have resigned in disgrace) and thank them for all the invaluable work and progress made. The second is that you go on to redefine key principles and operating structures essentially unwinding any progress made. You change the way success is measured making sure that no direct comparisons can be made. Then having set the organisation on a new path toward the ever-elusive goal of ‘improvement’ you effusively praise your staff team bringing them on board for another radical make-over of their working practices. Organisations, such as this, are on a continual journey of self-improvement which they maintain by regularly going round in circles. And so the show goes on ……