It has taken over a year for the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) to replace Rob Behrens, but on April 23rd, Paula Sussex passed the audition to become the new Ombudsman.

The six committee members who attended are so new to parliament that it was akin to watching a group of high-school students interview their principal. The gravitas of Sir Bernard Jenkin, announcing ‘Order, Order’ was sadly missing as you can see here.

The whole event was described as ‘underwhelming’ by David Hencke in his Westminster Confidential article but the rather low-key performance of the candidate was all that was required. After all, only the winning candidate undertakes a public interview, so this was always in the bag.

The PACAC appointment report provides us with a summary CV.

Paula Sussex has worked across the public, private and voluntary sectors, leading organisations such as the Charity Commission and Student Loans Company, and, most recently, fintech startup OneID as Chief Executive. Previously, she worked in consultancy, with her career taking her to PwC, TXU (Eastern Group), KPMG Consulting and Atos, as well as the service delivery of large scale IT, assuming the role of Senior Vice President at CGI (Logica). Ms Sussex was made a CBE in the 2023 New Year’s Honours List for ‘services to higher education’.

Her full CV, in Appendix 5, also records that she is a trained barrister and if you have ever watched a barrister in action, you will know that they are experts in using the facts at their disposal to create a convincing narrative. Her experience with the NHS links back to her role as Senior Vice President at CGI, where she was responsible for a £400 million business unit focused on expanding markets in the health and public sectors. Her work involved securing and delivering IT and consultancy services, likely including contracts with NHS trusts or government bodies.

Since April 2023, Sussex has been CEO of OneID, a company which aims to increase digital ID in order to simplify customer identification and reduce fraud. She is a digital diva, and throughout her pre-appointment interview, she revealed ways she would bring the rather musty PHSO into the digital age.

From Q.11 on improving productivity;
 I can imagine, although I am not giving this as a forecast, that more can be done to improve the efficiency with which we do the casework. There is likely to be a technology answer in there … 

Following a direct question on digital changes (Q.14), Sussex responds with;
…there is a role that artificial intelligence can play, but first off you need to have the data in good order—don’t imagine that you can wave a magic wand. There are also regulatory and ethical issues, and sometimes legislative issues, about handing over any form of decision making to artificial intelligence; none the less, there will be a role there. Certainly, in many parts of government now, productivity is increased by simple things—for example, the first draft of a submission can often be done much faster. You always need human oversight, though.

Could we be looking at an Ombudsman service where the first draft of a report is carried out by a robot? Some may say that it already happens! It would be straightforward for a well-trained AI bot to assess complaints to see if they meet the core criteria for investigation. That would certainly speed up the process and it would go some way to solving the staff issues referred to in the pre-appointment hearing.

In Q.20 we learnt that;
The 2023 PHSO staff survey demonstrated that 35% of staff do not think that change is managed very well at the organisation.

And in Q.21, it gets worse;
Following on from that, the same survey suggested that there is some dissatisfaction with pay and career development opportunities. In February this year, over 200 employees held a one-day strike, so there has been industrial action recently as well.

Well, once they are replaced with empathetic avatars, they may be sorry that they kicked up such a fuss.

Sussex remained focused on the data, stating that complaints are a ‘gift’ in Q.26. While in Q.11 she said;
…what I would like to do is to understand how the insights from the data that the PHSO pretty much alone receives—the data in those 30-odd thousand complaints—could be used constructively and effectively to identify and support the improvement of public service, working with other parts of central Government, perhaps.

In Q.16 she refers to ‘leading indicators’ and in Q.39 she states that she wishes to identify ‘systemic root causes’ through data analysis.

PHSO has always been in a position to use data to identify trends, such as an increase in maternity deaths, either nationally or in specific units. They only have to code the complaint data accordingly, but have never been inclined to do so, preferring to treat each case individually. The government has not been particularly interested in receiving such data, perhaps because it would then be subject to FOI requests and they may be put under pressure to take action. But Sussex is a private/public hybrid and the private sector, recognises that data is a valuable commodity. Particularly, when you are training AI.

We are led to believe that all this data gathering would be for the benefit of the public but if history tells us anything, it will more likely be used to protect the state. There are only two things which cause anxiety to government bodies. Negative publicity and successful legal action. Imagine for one moment that a previous Ombudsman, Dame Julie Mellor, had upheld James Titcombe’s complaint about maternity services at Morecambe Bay, instead of repeatedly pushing it aside. Most likely, there would never have been the Morecambe Bay Inquiry, which lifted the lid on a national scandal in maternity services. Speedy action from the Ombudsman could prevent such cases from gathering momentum by offering resolution and compensation at an early stage. Members of the public only use the law when all other routes have failed them. All that would be required would be to know in advance the cases that are likely to result in negative press or damaging legal action.

Perhaps this explains Sussex’s response to Q.14;

While I do not know what the casework systems are, in both the Charity Commission and with Student Loans, simply putting in effective customer relationship management systems—PHSO may have done so—enabled them to flag, for example, where cases were getting stuck and needed to be pulled out of the queue to have separate scrutiny. Over and above all of that—and again, not knowing the approach that the PHSO takes—triaging out the more systemic, the more strategic, or the trickier cases for more policy-based review is quite possibly something that the organisation, if it is not doing at the moment, would benefit from.

An effective customer relationship management system, which prevents scandals and public inquiries, would be a very valuable asset to the government and also to the many private companies that now operate under the NHS logo.

This would tie in nicely with Sussex’s overall aim as quoted in response to Q.11;

I would say, in summary, it would be to increase the value and the impact of the PHSO.

But the value to whom and the impact on whom were the questions that the rather inexperienced PACAC committee failed to ask. Never mind, there is always next time.