Independent Complaints Reviewer to the National Archives Annual Report 2001-2002

Independent Complaints Reviewer

Jodi Berg was appointed as the first Independent Complaints Reviewer (ICR) to the National Archives (PRO) in 2000. Her role is to act as an honest broker in investigating complaints about the PRO made by users of its services.

Mrs Berg is a solicitor and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. She is also ICR for the Land Registry, the Charity Commission and the Housing Corporation and Independent Case Examiner for the Child Support Agency. The office of the ICR is independent of the PRO and its services are free to complainants.

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Contents

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Foreword

I am pleased to present my second annual report as Independent Complaints Reviewer to the PRO. In undertaking this role my aims have been:

The establishment of the ICR process is a positive, tangible demonstration of the integrity of the PRO's own complaints procedures. It recognises the importance of ensuring public confidence in the openness and accountability of the PRO. When things go wrong, or customers believe that they have, it is important that the PRO responds courteously and treats complaints seriously. Customers expect that mistakes will be acknowledged and an attempt will be made to resolve problems. When people feel that this has not happened, they need to be able to turn to an independent body for an impartial investigation of their complaint.

All the complaints that I review have already been investigated within the PRO's internal complaints procedures. It is when problems arise that the Agency's commitment to customer service is tested. The ICR process alone cannot make a difference to the way in which an organisation deals with its customers. However, it can be a catalyst for change and one step towards raising standards of customer care and increasing customer satisfaction. The PRO is committed to acting upon my recommendations and learning from complaints.

The PRO, like many public bodies, is undergoing an era of change. The development of new areas of service provision, such as e-access to public records and outreach work to address social exclusion, will place new demands on the services that it provides. As its customer base expands, the PRO will face fresh challenges in managing its relationship with its customers. It is vital that it has robust customer complaint procedures, which are continually evaluated to ensure that they meet the requirements of a changing work and social environment.

The PRO has taken a pro-active approach to these issues and has welcomed the feedback that the ICR process has been able to provide. The Agency's strong commitment to customer service is evidenced by this and by the small number of complaints that it does not manage to resolve itself. The Board is to be congratulated for this continuing success.

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One year on

In my last annual report, I commented that my office had only received five complaint referrals from PRO customers. This year this pattern has continued and we have only received three formal complaints. As I write this report, the PRO recorded 58 complaints in total for the period November 2000 to October 2001. This represents a very small percentage indeed of the PRO's customer contacts.

Over the last year, the PRO has made advances in raising awareness about the ICR service. However, there is still work to be done to ensure that anyone in need of our service knows how to refer their complaints and that staff are confident in the advice that they can offer.

Staff would be helped by the inclusion of information about the ICR service in internal PRO documentation on policies and procedures for dealing with complaints.

High Expectations

The PRO has a diverse, international customer base and provides advice, education, consultation and research facilities on site at Kew, at the Family Records Centre in central London and, increasingly, by e-mail and on the World Wide Web. The PRO has an enviable reputation for the quality of the service that it provides. This year it has received its second Charter Mark in recognition of this. On the whole, customers have a very high opinion of the PRO. This naturally leads to high expectations and, consequently, people are also prepared to express strong feelings when they believe that something has gone wrong or improvements can be made. Feedback of this kind can be particularly valuable in assisting the Agency to identify areas where improvements can be made to the customer experience. The inherent difficulty for an organisation renowned for providing a quality service is that, when something does go wrong, it can have a disproportionate effect on its reputation.

The 1901 Census

This year, this has been highlighted by the problems the Agency has faced in the electronic publication of the 1901 Census. The failure of the website to meet the unprecedented demands for access placed upon it, has drawn widespread criticism and concern. Special interest publications, such as the Family Tree Magazine, have made the views of its readers well known. There is little doubt that PRO staff have had to cope with a great deal of dissatisfaction whilst the Agency makes the necessary adjustments to the system. As I write this report, the Census remains unavailable to on-line customers.

Customer Feedback

The way in which any organisation responds to criticisms and complaints is vital to the continuation of a good relationship with its customers. The key to this is creating easily accessible complaints handling systems. It is important that these systems include mechanisms for capturing lessons from complaints and developing good practice to improve the quality of service.

In general, the PRO goes to considerable efforts to obtain views about the service that it offers. It conducts regular user surveys and uses focus groups to develop services. In addition, I have welcomed the introduction of easy to complete customer feedback forms. The 'Your Views Matter to Us' form is available at both PRO offices and there is also a facility for customers to contact the Agency on-line. The PRO recognises that complaints are also a useful means of receiving customer feedback and can provide constructive information about how services can be improved.

Development Programmes

The PRO has also demonstrated an ongoing commitment to improving customer service and its face-to-face contact with customers provides an ideal opportunity to respond quickly and positively to customer concerns.

It has drawn together customer care, complaints, staff suggestions and user surveys within the Public Services Development Programme. I welcome this move to provide an integrated approach to understanding customer needs. This system now also records compliments as well as complaints and will help to provide a balanced view of customer feedback. This is a positive response to a recommendation of my last report.

Immediate Challenges

The PRO has an ongoing service development programme and a major focus for the last year has been on the development of e-business and digitisation of records. In this, the PRO is at the forefront of developing services to meet Government targets for e-access. This has huge potential implications for customer service and offers an ideal opportunity to provide enhanced services to a wider customer base. As the year ends, there has been intense customer and media interest in the 1901 Census.

It is unfortunate that the PRO was initially unable to meet the high expectations of the public and had to suspend or limit service delivery of the project. I think it is fair to say that the PRO has been a victim of its own success. The immediate challenge for the PRO in the coming year will be to manage customer expectations as it strives to open the website to those many millions of customers keen to gain access to it. Keeping everyone informed of developments is crucial to this endeavour and may limit the potential increase in complaints.

Complaint procedures are only truly put to the test in times of difficulty. As the Agency continues its efforts to comprehensively reflect customer feedback, the number of recorded complaints is likely to increase significantly as a result of the difficulties encountered in accessing the 1901 Census website. It seems to me important not only to acknowledge the concerns expressed by customers but to applaud the efforts of hard-pressed members of staff who have, on the whole, handled this difficult and unique situation extremely well, providing courteous and helpful explanations to customers.

An Integrated System

Front line staff are vital to the standard of service offered by the PRO and their commitment is necessary to translate management intentions into good practice. I welcome the advances that the PRO has made on introducing customer care training to new staff. My second year as ICR has seen a concerted effort by the PRO to develop customer service and complaint handling procedures into an integrated system. The effectiveness of this will only become apparent through evaluation of how that commitment is put into practice. The development of complaints management systems must be an organic process and subject to ongoing analysis. This will ensure that the needs of customers are being met and that service improvements are being realised.

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Comments, Compliments and Complaints

During the course of 2001, we received a very small number of complaint referrals. This mirrored the pattern of the previous year, showing, once again, that the vast majority of PRO customers were happy with the service that they received from the Agency. Those customers who had cause to complain were clearly satisfied with the response that was offered by the PRO within its internal complaints procedure and did not feel the need to take matters further.

As last year, the complainants that we did hear from had some interesting points to make - and challenging issues for us to look into and consider. However, in the event, most problems were resolved and only one complaint was accepted for formal review during the year.

Publishing the records

This complaint was made on behalf of a publishing company that had approached the PRO in connection with its wish to explore the possibility of commercial publication of certain military records held by the PRO. In particular, discussions revolved around the cost and logistics of the considerable reprographic work involved in collating the records in question.

The anniversaries of the First and Second World Wars had generated widespread interest in the records in question in recent years and, some time after this, the PRO entered into an agreement with another organisation to publish this information as a joint enterprise, in a CD-ROM. The company complained that the PRO had acted unfairly as it had not been offered this opportunity. It also complained that the PRO had withdrawn an initial offer to provide the large-scale photocopying that its proposal required at a discount and that this, too, had placed it at a disadvantage.

The ICR is not able to consider issues that should more appropriately be referred to a court. However, we were able to look into the way in which the PRO had handled matters to consider whether there had been any maladministration in the way in which it had dealt with the complainant.

When agreeing commercial partnership arrangements, the PRO is not obliged to conduct exclusive discussions with any one particular organisation, nor to enter negotiations with any and every organisation that wishes to do so. However, the ICR pointed out that it was important for the PRO to make information about its practice and procedures in such matters accessible, in accordance with Treasury guidelines on the marketing of government services. This complaint had arisen prior to the incorporation of these guidelines into the PRO's policies and procedures. By the time the complaint was referred to the ICR, this had happened.

This complainant believed that a competitor had been given preferential treatment. However, the ICR found that there was a significant difference between the two situations. In the case of the complainant, its approach to the PRO had amounted solely to a request to obtain a price for the reprographics work required to take its project forward. This was dealt with in the usual way by the PRO's reprographics team. This contrasted with the second company, which had set out to enter into a partnership arrangement with the PRO, through negotiation with the appropriate Agency department.

The ICR did not find any objective evidence of maladministration. At all times, the PRO had acted in accordance with its current policy and procedures. However, this complaint had revealed a weakness in the Agency's internal communication. The ICR made a number of recommendations aimed at improving this and at strengthening PRO procedures.

The ICR found that the PRO had, indeed, initially offered a 'special price' for photocopying. The offer was inappropriate because it fell outside of PRO rules relating to reprographics. It had been made by an inexperienced officer and was subsequently withdrawn; however, the PRO had not kept records of correspondence on this matter and, initially, denied that the offer was made.

The ICR criticised the PRO for this. She recommended that the Agency apologise to the complainant for the shortcomings identified and, in addition, made a number of systemic recommendations aimed at improving Agency procedures. In particular, the ICR recommended that information about its commercial procedures and arrangements is more widely available. The PRO accepted the recommendations made by the ICR.

The Census

A small number of Agency customers had comments to make about the 1891 Census pilot and about the subsequent launch of the 1901 Census data.

One complainant felt that the 1891 Census pilot had been rendered worthless by changes that had been made to the way in which the data had been presented. He complained that, previously, the information had shown the respective positions of individuals within households (such as wife, son, daughter etc), but in the pilot this information had not been displayed. He also complained that the fee for using the service was too high (this was the only complaint referral about PRO fees that we received in 2001).

Another complainant contacted us about difficulties in accessing the PRO's 1901 Census website. Despite the considerable media interest in this significant problem, this is the only formal complaint that we have received so far. This is a real testament to the way in which the PRO's helpline staff are dealing with the many thousands of calls that they are receiving about the website and to the Agency's pro-active efforts to address public concern.

On-line access

A considerable proportion of contacts that we receive about the PRO are made via e-mail - far more so than the other agencies with which we work. There is little doubt that a significant percentage of PRO customers are used to communicating in this way, This is borne out by information that we have received from the PRO about complaints that it has dealt with within its internal procedures, many of which have been received by e-mail. Some of these complainants have expressed concern about perceived lack of response to their complaints, which may be caused by the higher expectation of speed of response held by those who use e-mail. This places an onus on the PRO to develop the speedy 'talk-back' systems that e-mail users will continue to demand and requires the PRO to continue to pay particular attention to its procedures for dealing with e-mail customers.

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The Independent Complaints Review Service

The ICR's office provides an independent complaint investigation service that is free to the public. We will ensure fairness and impartiality in the investigation of complaints about the PRO. We investigate failures in service standards or maladministration that have resulted in problems or concerns for customers.

We can investigate:

Initially, customer complaints are handled through the PRO's internal complaints procedures. If a complainant remains dissatisfied with the PRO's handling of their complaint, they can ask the ICR to investigate. The ICR's office will only investigate complaints that have already been considered within the PRO's internal procedures. We will not usually consider any complaint later than six months after the PRO has completed its own investigations and offered a final response. There are a number of complaints that the ICR cannot investigate:

Our service is available to all customers of the PRO and complainants can contact us directly or the PRO can refer them to us. We will acknowledge receipt of a complaint within one week. Initially, where appropriate, we will try to help customers resolve matters with the PRO. However, when this is not possible, we will give the customer and the PRO sufficient opportunity to put their views forward.

At the outset, we agree a summary of complaint with the complainant; this forms the terms of reference for the review and helps us to understand the key issues in the complaint. It also ensures that the PRO and the complainant have a shared understanding of the issues from the beginning.

During our investigation, the ICR will consider all of the views and comments provided by the complainant and the PRO. All of the documentary evidence and files provided by the PRO are also scrutinised. Where necessary, the ICR may request further documentary evidence or conduct interviews with the complainant or PRO staff. This is to ensure that we have a sound understanding of events.

Following every investigation, we provide complainants and the PRO with a full explanation of the ICR's findings. This may be in the form of a letter, which explains the findings of the investigation. If the complaint proceeds to formal review, both the complainant and the PRO are given an opportunity to comment on the ICR's findings on the background to the complaint. At the end of the review, the ICR sends copies of her report to the complainant and the PRO.

If the complaint is upheld, the ICR may make recommendations that aim to put matters right for the complainant or to improve the way that the PRO deals with similar issues in the future.

Accessibility

We actively explore ways in which to promote our services. The provision of complete and easily accessible information about the service that we provide to complainants is essential to our efforts. We understand that using jargon and obscure or legal terminology hinders effective communication. Our public leaflets are designed to be clear and to use plain language. We offer information in several languages, for those who do not use English as their first language. Information is also available on audiotape.

We supply information through a number of channels:

We see this as a meaningful way of demonstrating our independence and providing information to everyone who may need our help. We ensure that leaflets and telephone consultation are always available to consumer bodies and we provide information to other complaints handling bodies through our active membership of the British and Irish Ombudsman Association.

It is our policy that no one should be discouraged from contacting us in order to learn about our services or to take advantage of them. We aim to maintain contact with complainants in ways that best suit their needs, whether by letter, telephone, fax, e-mail or in person.

The ICR office is accessible on the Internet through a number of consumer websites. Our telephone answering service is available outside office hours and those who choose to contact us by telephone or e-mail will find that they are communicating with a 'real person', rather than a 'machine'. We have found that complainants usually respond more positively, no matter what the outcome of their complaint, when they have access to a named individual who has taken the time and effort to understand and engage with their problems and concerns.

Finally, we recognise that English is not the first language of all of our customers and we are able to provide access to translation facilities where appropriate.

Standards

Our work is guided by the principles of public service. We work to the highest standards of Independent Case Review in the public sector and aim to continually improve the standards that we have achieved to date. Our policies and procedures have a strong customer focus, to ensure the delivery of an open, accessible and professional service to complainants

We value our membership of the British and Irish Ombudsman's Association (BIOA) and the opportunities that it offers us to learn from other organisations and share good practice. We take an active interest in the Association and during the past year, the ICR has served on working groups and our office manager, Andrew Robertson, has taken on the responsibility of Secretary to the Association's Managers' Group.

Complainants can expect certain standards from the ICR and her staff:

Courtesy: We treat our customers with consideration.
Honesty: We are straightforward in dealing with our customers.
Respect: We treat all complaints seriously. We ask complainant's opinions and take account of their wishes.
Accessibility: Complainants can contact us in a number of ways, both during and outside office hours.
Objectivity: We treat all complainants in a fair and impartial manner and approach investigations with an open mind.
Flexibility: We take steps to accommodate the needs and wishes of our customers.
Plain language: We communicate with people using terms or explanations that are easily understood.
Openness: We seek the views of complainants and PRO staff about our service. In particular, we welcome complaints as an opportunity to improve the service.

Procedural Standards

Our procedures are subject to quality control and accord with the principles of good administrative practice. We ensure that our research is up to date and we take account of other public service and complaints handling guidelines where appropriate. We make every effort to remain aware of forthcoming changes in legislation and policy so that our staff can offer appropriate advice and information to users of our services.

We strive for excellence and welcome opportunities to 'benchmark' our own service in an objective way. The ICR office was one of the first organisations in the United Kingdom to achieve BSI accreditation for our complaint management systems. BSI Standard CMSAS 86:2000 recognises the quality of our internal complaints procedures and the standards that we achieve in dealing with complaints about this office.