What is maladministration?

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What is maladministration?

Before you get very far with a complaint to a public service ombudsman, you will probably come across the word ‘maladministration’.

Ombudsmen who look at complaints about public services were set up to investigate ‘maladministration causing injustice’. Some public services ombudsmen can also look at ‘service failure’, or ‘failure to provide a service’.

So what do all these terms mean?

The Local Government Ombudsman’s current leaflet puts it like this:
We can consider complaints about things that have gone wrong in the way a service has been given or the way a decision has been made, if this has caused problems for you. We cannot usually question what a council has done simply because you do not agree with it. There must be some fault by the council.

This page looks at:
What is ‘maladministration’?
What is ‘injustice’?
What is ‘service failure’?
Who can I talk to about my complaint?

Maladministration
The Cambridge online dictionary defines maladministration as ‘lack of care, judgment or honesty in the management of something’.

But the law does not define maladministration. When the public service ombudsmen were set up, parliament left it for the ombudsmen to decide the meaning of the word.

When parliament was debating the Bill to set up the Parliamentary Ombudsman in 1967, Richard Crossman said that maladministration included "bias, neglect, inattention, delay, incompetence, ineptitude, perversity, turpitude and so on". In a court case in 1979 Lord Denning particularly liked the ‘and so on’ at the end. He said: "It would be a long and interesting list, clearly open-ended, covering the manner in which a decision is reached or discretion is exercised..."

Here are the explanations of what maladministration means given by the main public services ombudsmen.

The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) investigates complaints about local authority services in England. Its 2008 leaflet suggests that you may want to complain about:

administrative fault, such as the council making a mistake or not following its own rules
poor service or no service
delay
bad advice

The LGO also has a section for advisors on its website which offers a longer list of things which could be maladministration:

delay
incorrect action or failure to take any action
failure to follow procedures or the law
failure to provide information
inadequate record-keeping
failure to investigate
failure to reply
misleading or inaccurate statements
inadequate liaison
inadequate consultation
broken promises

The Housing Ombudsman Service investigates complaints about all registered social landlords and housing associations, and some private landlords as well. He explains maladministration like this: you can complain if you think your landlord has done something wrong which affects you in your home. This includes:

failing to do repairs
making it difficult to use services or facilities to which you are entitled
making administrative errors, and so on

The Parliamentary Ombudsman investigates complaints about government departments. This is her list of things which indicate maladministration:

failure to provide a service
delay that could have been avoided
faulty procedures, or failing to follow correct procedures
not telling you about any rights of appeal open to you
unfairness, bias or prejudice
giving advice which is misleading or inadequate
refusing to answer reasonable questions
rudeness and not apologising for mistakes
mistakes in handling your claims
not putting things right when something has gone wrong

Don’t forget that none of the ombudsmen can question what a council, landlord or government department has done simply because you do not agree with it. There must be some fault by the body concerned.

Also, the ombudsmen cannot look at things like:

staff matters
commercial decisions and contracts
teaching, curriculum, conduct, discipline and management in schools and colleges
rent and service charges set by a council or social landlord
government policy
legislation

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Injustice
There is no fixed ombudsman definition of injustice, but it basically means that the maladministration must have caused problems for you. The Local Government Ombudsman suggests that this could include:

hurt feelings, distress, worry, or inconvenience
loss of right or amenity
not receiving a service
financial loss or unnecessary expense
time and trouble in pursuing a justified complaint

The hardship or injustice you have suffered must have been caused by a fault by the organisation you are complaining about. The other thing to bear in mind is that the problems must be quite serious. The ombudsman can decide not to investigate a complaint if you are only slightly affected.
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Service failure
Service failure is not very different from maladministration, but it can have a slightly wider meaning.

In 2002, the Scottish Public Services Ombud was set up to provide a one stop shop for complaints about all public services in Scotland. The Public Services Ombud for Wales was set up in 2006 in the same way. Both the Welsh and the Scottish public services ombudsmen can look at service failure as well as maladministration. From April 2008, the Local Government Ombudsman for England (LGO) can look at ‘service failure’ and ‘failure to provide a service’ as well as maladministration.

Here are some examples of what ‘service failure’ might mean, taken from public services ombudsmen websites.

The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman will investigate complaints that any public body in Scotland has:

provided a poor service
delivered a service badly
failed to provide a service

The LGO can make a finding of ‘service failure’ even if there is no maladministration. This could involve failure in a service which it was the council’s function to provide, or failure to provide such a service. For example, if the council has arranged for contractors to make repairs in a council property, and the contractors just never turn up, the tenants will not get the service they are due. This would be a failure in a service which it was the council’s function to provide, and a complaint could be made to the ombudsman if the council do not deal with the problem appropriately.

The Health Service Ombudsman has always had a wider brief than just maladministration in the health service. Her website states: ‘If you have suffered because you received poor service or treatment or were not treated properly or fairly - and the organisation hasn't put things right where it could have - we may be able to help you.’ Examples of the sorts of complaints she can look into include:

receiving the wrong or poor treatment
errors in diagnosis or treatment
communication problems within or between services
significant mistakes over appointments to see a doctor or go to hospital
failure by an organisation to provide or pay for a service such as continuing care
delay that could have been avoided
faulty procedures, or failing to follow correct procedures
unfairness, bias or prejudice
giving advice which is misleading or inadequate
rudeness and not apologising for mistakes
not putting things right when something has gone wrong

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Who can I talk to about my complaint?
If you are still confused after reading this page, all the public services ombudsmen have telephone helplines which you can call to talk to an adviser about your complaint. They are usually open during working hours.

Health Service Ombudsman 0845 015 4033
Housing Ombudsman 0845 712 5973
Local Government Ombudsman for England 0845 602 1983
Parliamentary Ombudsman 0845 015 4033
Public Service Ombudsman for Wales 0845 601 0987
Scottish Public Services Ombudsman 0800 377 7330

Follow the links in the green box on the right of this page to find out more about each ombudsman scheme, and to connect to their websites.

You can also talk to an advisor in a CAB or an advice agency to get help with making your complaint.

May 2008