Privileges Committee hears all sides over Charity Commission breaching Parliamentary privilege on Ombudsman’s sex abuse reports

A rare but virtually unreported public hearing by the Privileges Committee on Budget Day revealed a sharp divide between the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the Charity Commission over the role of charities in safeguarding children and adults who have been sexually abused.

The hearing was sparked off by Parliament unanimously reporting the Charity Commission to the Privileges Committee after Stephen Hoare, the chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, decided the Commission had breached Parliamentary privilege by wanting to delay publication of the reports until after a judicial hearing being called by the Commission. I did a report here .

The reports which Parliament compelled the Ombudsman to publish with final conclusions covering complaints of a recent adult sex abuse case – Miss A – and a historic child sexual abuse at a school -Mr U.

Mr U later contacted my blog and waived his anonymity to give me a detailed account of what had happened at a Roman Catholic school in Blackburn when it was run by a paedophile priest. The blog about this is here.

The hearing began with a statement on the issue from Saira Salimi, the Speaker’s Counsel.

She told the hearing: “This is quite a difficult case, because it does raise difficult questions about
the relationship between parliamentary and legal accountability. There is a power conferring a discretion on a public authority to report in certain circumstances, and the report is made to Parliament. Although it looks at first glance like a function that might be reviewable by the courts, the interaction of parliamentary and legal accountability may mean that the decision is not justiciable.”

She said that if the issue of privilege had not been the raised the Parliamentary Ombudsman would have been inhibited from laying the reports before Parliament.

She added:” this is an unusual case where Parliament and the courts are on the same territory at the
same time. That is not unprecedented but is unusual, because of the self denying ordinance that the House normally maintains in relation to matters before the courts under the sub judice resolution. It is my hope that our intervention in this case will assist both the courts and Parliament in carrying out their respective roles, which are constitutionally distinct ands equally important.”

Karl Banister, Director of Operations, Legal and Clinical and Deputy Ombudsman at Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO). gave evidence.

He told MPs: “the[ charity] commission should have an independent person review Mr U’s case to consider whether the reasoning was adequately accounted for; consider whether the outcome would have been different; look for learning on how it engages in such cases;[and] look at
its risk guidance;” Similar recommendations were made in Miss A’s case.

It is these recommendations that the Charity Commission is objecting to and says that the Ombudsman exceeded her powers and that such recommendations are unlawful.

He revealed considerable attempts were made at mediating the dispute.

“My assessment was that it was better not to provoke the commission to issue legal proceedings. It is obviously unattractive for two public bodies to be litigating. Were they to do so, they would likely get an injunction, and that would be an additional cost to the public purse.”

However in the end the Charity Commission decided to go ahead with a judicial review. it said:”“a declaration that the decision of 14 March 2025 is unlawful”—that is, our decision that it was
not compliant—“that the 14 March decision is quashed, that the defendant pay the claimant’s cost of the claim or any other order the court considers appropriate. That is what the judicial review sought.”

The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee were informed and the Parliamentary Ombudsman stuck to its point that the Charity Commission had not fully complied with decision. It was then taken out of their hands and Mr Hoare, the committee chair, decided to raise the privilege issue and compel the reports to be published so the committee could consider them.

The Charity Commission brought a team of people to hearing headed by the chief executive David Holdsworth.

He told MPs:”The decision of the PHSO in its letter of 14 March—that we should reinvestigate criminal matters already investigated by the police, the CPS or the wider criminal justice system but deemed not able to proceed—has grave implications, in our view, for anyone involved in running a charity and, indeed, for wider citizens’ rights under the criminal justice process.
It is also our view that the ombudsman cannot retake regulatory decisions made by the commission to force a different conclusion, replacing our judgment with its own. It is for those reasons that we reluctantly sought to clarify matters through the courts.”

It soon became clear – and this was reinforced during the national Child Sex Abuse inquiry – that the commission regards the Commission as primarily an administrative and registration authority not an investigatory authority.

It was also clear MPs and the Speaker’s Counsel thought that the matter could have been cleared up at a meeting of the PACAC committee without going to the courts.

But Felix Rechtman, head of litigation at the commission said:”: We are not saying that the PHSO decision is just inappropriate. We go further: we say it is unlawful, and matters of law are
reserved to the courts under our constitutional arrangement.”

It is quite clear this issue is going to run and run. The courts have not given the Charity Commission a date for a judicial review hearing yet. The commission will first have to get permission to bring the judicial review and then have a hearing. The next stage will be the Privileges Committee report on whether the Commission has committed a contempt of the House.

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Exclusive: Complainant” Mr U ” waives anonymity to reveal the child sex abuse cover up behind the Charity Commission and Parliamentary Ombudsman dispute

Damian Murray tells Westminster Confidential about his long battle with the Roman Catholic charity which covered up child sex abuse for 11 years

This is a story of the concealment and denial of child sex abuse by a charismatic principal of a college and religious charity who escaped justice in his lifetime and the failure of many organisations, including the Charity Commission and the charity to do anything about it.

Father Kevin O’Neill, a Marist priest, was principal of the Roman Catholic St Mary’s College in Blackburn. It was closed down in 2022 with £8.2 million debts reportedly caused by falling student numbers. It had been propped up by the last Tory government with emergency funding since 2020.

He was principal of the college from 1978 to 1993 and worked in Blackburn since 1964. He was born in Barking, east London and attended the Roman Catholic St Mary’s College in Middlesbrough going on to a get a degree at Christ’s College, Cambridge.

Damian was a pupil at the school between 1970 and 1977 and only discovered years later when a former pupil Graham Caveney revealed in a memoir that he had been sexually assaulted by O’Neill when he was a pupil there. It was then he realised O’Neill, as he long suspected, had been trying to groom him. The book, The Boy with Perpetual Nervousness was reviewed in The Guardian in 2017. See here.

Unlike Graham Caveney he was never sexually assaulted. It was in 2017 -seven years ago – that he started putting in a complaint to the Charity Commission and the Department for Education only to discover that neither were keen to take action. That is what led him to complain via his MP to the Parliamentary Ombudsman who have been the only people to do something about it

His view of the process is scathing. “This tortuously extended process also uncovered to me the worryingly close personal and organisational relationships actively fostered and maintained between the UK Roman Catholic Church and both the DfE and the Commission. It has shown in my view the
Commission in particular to be proudly unaccountable, intransigent, incompetent and
completely unfit for purpose.”

The cover up by the Marist priests is as bad as the actual child sexual abuse. When it was admitted in 1993 none of the governors of the school were apparently told and the principal was packed off to the United States on the grounds he was sick. When he died back in the UK in 2011 after getting dementia a celebratory mass was held at the school and the Lancashire Evening Telegraph is full of glowing tributes to him from former pupils with his nickname ” the Rev Kev” prominently mentioned. None of the pupils would have known about his dirty secret.

As bad as that the school in 2008 named a new £2.5 million arts centre in his honour – the O’Neill Academy for Performing Arts – which is now in use as a community venue.

And as late as 2024 the accounts of Marist society a curious note reveals :“At the start of 2023, the Charity was informed by the RLSS [ Religious Life Safeguarding Service] of an historic allegation made against a deceased member of the Society. The allegation was immediately investigated with all relevant parties (including the Charity Commission) notified of the event. After a full investigation and professional advice, the victim received a private financial settlement of £30,000 in full and final settlement of the claim. The RLSS has now closed this case.”

Damian says the charity ” deliberately lied about and concealed O’Neill’s abuse from the police; from school and charity regulators; from charitable donors and beneficiaries; from current, former and prospective staff, pupils and parents at St Mary’s College from other potential victims of O’Neill’s grooming or abuse; and from the wider public.”

He said :”The Diocese of Middlesbrough, the Department for Education and the Charity Commission have all failed to demonstrate effective, timely, or appropriate oversight of the Marist Fathers at any time
since the abuse was disclosed in 1993. Between 2017 and 2020 when I brought these important concerns to their attention in great detail and in line with their statutory or other formal responsibilities, these allegedly independent regulators have blankly refused to address any of them directly. They have simply chosen to turn a blind eye, both to O’Neill’s sexual abuse of a child in his care and to its long-term, deliberate concealment by the Marist Fathers.”

He managed to send his evidence to the national child sex abuse inquiry in the UK headed by Professor Alexis Jay about the case, though by that stage its formal hearings were closed. The inquiry has published a wider critical report on child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.

The Charity Commission says it is beyond its power to do anything about a charity’s role in “historic ” cases of child sexual abuse but this will be tested in a judicial review it is bringing against the Parliamentary Ombudsman claiming it is exceeding its powers in this case.

Blackburn is not alone in suffering child sexual abuse at the hands of Marist Fathers or the associated Marist Brothers. The Royal Commission into child sex abuse in Australia reported in 2014 on cases in schools in Queensland and New South Wales – one involving 19 boys – and in New Zealand nine Marist brothers were convicted of child sexual abuse.

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Two damning reports from Parliamentary Ombudsman say Charity Commission failed complainants about sexual abuse

The Parliamentary Ombudsman’s Office today published two reports into the Charity Commission’s handling of separate sexual abuse cases following Parliament’s rare privilege decision last week – see my report here – to compel Paula Sussex, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, to release them in the face of the Commission starting legal action to stop or delay publication.

Both reports highlight the failure of the Charity Commission to implement some of its findings and the total dissatisfaction of the two complainants – Lara Hall, 37 and Damian Murray, who is 66. Both decided to waive their anonymity. I will be publishing a separate follow up story on Mr Murray’s case after he contacted me – particularly after the local media failed to cover it. It is a truly shocking story.

The two cases are different. Lara Hall’s case involves the sexual exploitation by a trustee of a UK charity where she acted as a whistleblower.

Damian Murray’s case involved historic sexual child abuse by a prominent figure in the local community which was concealed by the charity and the college where he worked.

Lara said:

“The Charity Commission’s repeated failures have caused me profound pain and ongoing injustice. Instead of holding a trustee to account for appalling sexual exploitation, it questioned my experience and forced me to relive my worst trauma. How can survivors feel safe reporting abuse if they think they will be treated like I have? 

“By trying to block Parliament from seeing the reports, the Commission attempted to avoid scrutiny – striking at the heart of accountability in our democracy. Even now, it refuses to accept responsibility or act to put things right.

“It is my hope that by bringing the reports to Parliament’s attention action will finally be taken. The Commission must urgently address safeguarding to protect vulnerable people. Right now, it is failing in its core duty.

“It is time for change, oversight, and accountability within the Charity Sector so what happened to me is never repeated. I call on Parliament to hold the Commission to account and restore public trust. People deserve to feel safe approaching charities, and they deserve a regulator that takes safeguarding seriously

Damian Murray said:“For over seven years the Charity Commission has refused to act upon my complaint about the concealment of child sexual abuse.

“The Charity Commission has doggedly resisted all efforts by me, and latterly the Parliamentary Ombudsman, to encourage it properly or promptly to discharge its statutory responsibilities, choosing rather to shield the charity and its Trustees from scrutiny and accountability.

“After much unnecessary time incurred due to this resistance, the Ombudsman’s report has now been laid in Parliament. I trust now that politicians will hold the Commission to account, where I as an ordinary UK citizen failed.

“By stark contrast with the Commission, I very much appreciate the careful, professional and empathetic way that the Ombudsman’s team have dealt with me and with the complex and consequential concerns I have raised.”

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman CEO, Rebecca Hilsenrath KC (Hon) said: 

“The Charity Commission indicated throughout our investigations that they did not agree with our findings.  They have not complied with the bulk of our recommendations, despite our best efforts and our willingness to work with them to ensure compliance.

“It is important that the Commission provides a full apology for their failings and reassures Lara and Damian that they will put things right by complying completely with our recommendations. They have not done this so far. 

“Our report has now been laid in the House of Commons, following the intervention of Parliament last week. The Commission had prevented us from doing so by bringing legal proceedings. We act on behalf of Parliament to hold Government and other national bodies to account for failures, and we have a responsibility to make Parliament aware of cases of non-compliance. I am pleased that Parliament has taken an interest in these cases and has given us the opportunity to bring them to the attention of the House so that it can intervene.

“The purpose of our investigations is always to encourage learning and service improvements. If an organisation looks at what went wrong, it will be able to stop the same mistake from happening again.”

The Charity Commission released a statement criticising the action of Parliament to order publication of the reports.

A spokesperson said: “We have long accepted that there are genuine and important lessons for the Commission to learn from these two sensitive cases, principally in the way in which we communicate with complainants, and we have made improvements to our processes as a result. We have previously apologised to both complainants.

The Commission undertook detailed reviews in each case, as set out by the Ombudsman, and concluded that the overall outcome in each case was sound. In the case of Ms Hall, we had already issued an official warning to the charity concerned. 

But it is our view that by making the decision that we did not comply with certain recommendations in its reports, the Ombudsman has misunderstood our remit and overstepped its role, meaning that its decision making was unlawful.

We respect the work and authority of the Ombudsman, but it is vital that we, in turn, are enabled to do the job that Parliament set us. 

We have worked hard to seek to resolve the matter with the Ombudsman directly, but this has not proven possible. For that reason, we have brought legal action at the High Court. 

We have not asked the court to block the laying of any report before Parliament. We did, though, ask the Parliamentary committee to delay considering the reports to allow the courts to give judgment on our own and the Ombudsman’s statutory remits first.”

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Charity Commission reported to Privileges Committee by MPs after it tries to stop a critical report by Parliamentary Ombudsman

Exclusive: Report will reveal huge dispute over two reports into complaints of sexual abuse by charities supervised by the Commission

An extraordinary stand off between Parliament and the Charity Commission was revealed yesterday after Simon Hoare, Tory chair of the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, made a rare use of privilege to compel the Parliamentary Ombudsman, Paula Sussex, to publish a critical report into the Charity Commission next week after MPs were told the Commission was blocking its publication.

Lyndsay Hoyle, the Speaker, granted the request. It was the second one he has granted in four years – the last being from Angela Rayner, when she was in opposition in 2021 ordering the release of Government minutes of meetings between former Tory MP Owen Paterson, health minister, Lord Bethell and special advisers over the award of up to £777 million Covid testing contracts to Randox Laboratories, without competition who employed the MP as a consultant for £8333 a month.

MPs were told by Mr Hoare that the Charity Commission was blocking publication by going to judges and he wanted it reported to the Privileges Committee.

He said “The Charity Commission is bringing legal proceedings deliberately to prevent the laying of two reports before this House. That completely undermines the linkage between the ombudsman and this place, and …undermines our opportunity and decisions to look at any information that we deem to be of importance, or that matters to us, in order to allow us to advance policy.”

He claimed:  “Members from across the House have privately raised with me concerns about decisions that the commission is taking. It is appearing to do so in a slightly abstract or perverse way, without any degree of accountability. That matter is separate from this motion, but it is important for all our arm’s length bodies, and particularly the Charity Commission, to understand that this House will not be bullied by arm’s length bodies seeking recourse to the courts to stop us doing our job properly, efficiently and professionally on behalf of all our constituents.”

He was backed by Tory frontbench spokesman Alex Burghart and junior Cabinet Office minister Georgia Gould.

The Charity Commission has put a different interpretation of events in a statement issued yesterday which is at the end of this blog. Basically it is saying it was not aiming to block publication.

Bizarrely Mr Hoare said he had no knowledge of the complaints by a Miss A and Mr U in the two reports and had not seen him.

But both are already in the public domain on the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s website. Both contain criticism of safeguarding over sexual misconduct. Miss A has publicly named herself as Lara Hall, aged 35, and is a survivor of sexual abuse and a whistleblower.

She says in the news report issued by the Ombudsman: ” “I feel institutionally betrayed by the Commission. It made repeated commitments to me to deregister the charity and said it would do all it could to disable the trustee from acting in the name of charity in future, but the Commission dramatically changed regulatory course. This left me feeling incredibly vulnerable and confused.

“I feel so thankful and humbled to the PHSO for its diligent and thorough investigation into my complaint. I’m disappointed at the lack of contrition from the Commission.”

Acting Parliamentary Ombudsman Rebecca Hilsenrath said “Our investigation uncovered a number of failings around the Charity Commission’s handling of serious safeguarding concerns. It is important that the Commission apologises for its mistakes and reassures Lara that it will put things right.”

The full news report is here.

The second report involving Mr U involves historic child sexual abuse by a charity and in a sixth form college run by a religious charity. The abuse was hidden by the charity and it involved priests including one perpetrator who has a building named after him and was given a celebratory mass when he died.

The report said:” Mr U had long suspected he had also been a victim of grooming by the perpetrator. He told us it was only the book written by the victim in 2017 that allowed him to confirm the abuse as such. He told us the apparent absence of other victims was part of the reason he gave the perpetrator the benefit of the doubt for many years. ” When he raised issues he was treated as a vexatious complainant. The full report is here.

The Charity Commission says:“The Commission is challenging a PHSO decision that we have failed to implement some of its recommendations in two specific cases. We are concerned that PHSO’s approach expects us to act beyond our legal remit, at odds with Parliament’s intentions, and undermines our ability to regulate independently and effectively.

“We sought to resolve these matters without the need for legal proceedings but have been forced to put these matters beyond doubt, for the benefit of both organisations in fulfilling our respective public duties. We are therefore seeking the guidance of the High Court via a public law challenge.

“We welcome proper Parliamentary scrutiny of our role and have not asked the courts to prevent PHSO from laying any report before it. We had previously invited PACAC to delay its consideration of any report from PHSO related to this case, pending the outcome of these legal proceedings.”

 “We are mindful this matter has arisen from complaints of difficult personal experiences related to charities. We accepted there are some genuine lessons for the Commission to learn from these two sensitive cases, and we have made improvements to the way we communicate with complainants.”

“A charity should be a safe and trusted environment. As regulator, we are clear that keeping people safe should be a priority for all charities.”

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Equality and Human Rights Commission hides findings on Hilsenrath’s breach of Covid lockdown

The EHRC has refused to release the findings of an investigation into the huge breach of the Covid lockdown rules during the pandemic by Rebecca Hilsenrath, now chief executive of the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s Office.

The decision is in contravention of a ruling by John Edwards, the Information Commissioner, who ruled that Mark Benney , who put in the request to his office ,was entitled to answers about the finding of the report but not allowed to see it himself.

The EHRC has confirmed that a report was completed at the time Rebecca Hilsenrath, then its chief exceutive, was suspended by the EHRC as a precautionary measure. She then suddenly resigned only to get a senior job at the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s office almost immediately.

Her breach of Covid rules involved her traveling from her North London home to her country cottage in North Wales where her children also joined her -presumably also in breach of the rules – to spend their Christmas holiday together. She has four children. It was exposed in The Times newspaper.

Baroness Falkner, a crossbench peer and the chair of the EHRC, has used the same argument it deployed unsuccessfully to say that it would not answer questions about the report to protect Rebecca Hilsenrath’s privacy to refuse to publish the finding of the report.

Official Portrait of Baroness Falkner

She has decided not to appeal the decision but Mark Benney has put in his own appeal. It includes the words;” the Commissioner has erred in failing to consider whether the report and supporting documentation are capable of appropriate redaction in order to remove any special category data. Finally, it also follows that material within the report and supporting documentation that is neither personal data nor special category data is properly disclosable according to the overarching logic of the inDecision Notice.”

In my opinion this decision to hide the finding of a report about Rebecca Hilsenrath’s breach of the Covid rules is totally wrong. It may be five years ago but the lockdown meant tens of thousands of people could not move around the country, make trips like hers to celebrate Christmas and were not even able to visit relatives dying in hospitals all over the country.

In my opinion there appears to be a certain class of people who are arrogant enough to think that they are above rules that everybody else in the country is expected to obey. These people are often protected by friends in powerful positions to avoid the consequences that other less privileged people have to suffer from breaking the rules. I am not saying in this particular case this is necessarily so but the failure of public organisations to come clean about the facts in this case can only add to further speculation.

Incidently the Parliamentary Ombudsman website is still silent on any new cases and no date has been fixed yet for the new Ombudsman, Paula Sussex, to join it.

Rebecca Hilsenrath has broken her silence from the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s Office in a YouTube video on mental health put out by the Ombudsman’s Association on Leadership, Listening and Making Mistakes dealing with mental health issues. She frankly discloses that she suffered four bouts of post natal depression when she had her children and members of her family have suffered mental health problems so she is sympathetic about mentally ill people who are being badly treated by the NHS and other organisations. See the interview below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVc5F-B5Ebw

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Information Commissioner orders EHRC to provide answers over Covid breach by former chief executive Rebecca Hilsenrath

NEW: Since this post was published I have learned that Rebecca Hilsenrath has been awarded an honorary KC and been appointed a member of the Civil Justice Council, chaired by the Master of the Rolls,Sir Geoffrey Vos. She is responsible for advising the judiciary on the use of alternative dispute resolution, where disputes are settled outside the courts. Ironically this would include the demand from CEDAWinLAW to solve the dispute over compensation for 50swomen pensioners which ministers oppose. She was and still is chief executive of the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s Office when the former ombudsman ,Robert Behrens, recommended compensation for partial maladministration by the DWP. It would be curious to know what her position will be on this if this ever came up.

John Edwards, the Information commissioner, has ruled that the Equality and Human Rights Commission must answer what action it took when it was revealed that its former chief executive, breached Covid rules at the height of the pandemic by driving from north London to her holiday cottage in Wales for a family Christmas in 2020.

The decision is a partial victory for Mark Benny, a dogged campaigner, who sought answers to what action it took when it became publicly known through an article in The Times that she had driven hundreds of miles when there was a ban on any long distance travel as part of the national lockdown.

But the information commissioner has decided not to release a report of an EHRC investigation or correspondence from her because it goes into her private life and might cause unwanted distress.

However his ruling is significant for a number of reasons. He has had to weigh up public interest in this case versus a person’s right to privacy. And he has come down very firmly that there is a public interest case about how senior public figures conducted themselves during the pandemic. He also ruled that public bodies cannot, as the EHRC did, impose a blanket ban under the privacy section of the Freedom of Information Act, to refuse to confirm or deny anything because it involves personal data.

This could have wider implications since public bodies use this technique where there are controversial appointments or resignations to refuse to provide information because itinvolves personal data

Rebecca Hilsenrath’s case was particularly controversial because she resigned her chief executive’s job at EHRC only to be parachuted into a top position at the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s Office where since became Interim Ombudsman and chief executive, an equivalent or even better status than she had at the EHRC.

Extraordinarily when Mark Benny pressed the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s Office on what they knew or whether they took into account of her Covid breach during her appointment, the office said it had lost the papers on her appointment process.

So now the EHRC will have to answer his questions within 30 days or as the Commissioner says in his report “failure to comply may result in the Commissioner making written certification of this fact to the High Court pursuant to section 54 of the Act and may be dealt with as a contempt of court.”
The questions he has asked include whether there was a proper investigation into the breach, whether it was completed and what was the outcome. He also wants to know whether she was suspended by the EHRC or put on gardening leave and whether she was dismissed or decided to resign.

All the public had at the time was a terse statement by the EHRC to the press. It said:

“The Equality and Human Rights Commission said they will consider whether further action against its chief executive is needed.
“She has apologised for this error of judgement,” said EHRC chair Baroness Kishwer Falkner.
“I will establish all the facts before deciding if any further action is
required.”

Nothing has been heard of this since and it is now known whether it came up again when she was interviewed to be Interim Ombudsman last year.

What the ruling by the Information Commissioner does is say that Mark Benney’s request was legitimate and it was necessary for the information to be released. But he thought this could be done through his questions and it was not a legitimate interest to release the full report because it contained details of her private life.

Interestingly he thought it might throw some more light on what happened at the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s Office. He said “he considers that disclosure of the requested
information would allow further scrutiny of that process.”

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The continuing saga of muddle, delay and lack of accountability over the appointment of a new Parliamentary Ombudsman

You may not have noticed but the UK Parliament and the National Health Service has not had a permanent Ombudsman to handle complaints for more than a year.

Ever since for some unexplained reason the former PM Rishi Sunak blackballed the first choice, Nick Hardwick, a former chair of the Parole Board, for the job despite going through a thorough selection process, interfering with a body which is independent of government, it has been rudderless without a permanent boss. See my blog on this here.

To solve the problem the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s office appointed an interim candidate, Rebecca Hilsenraft, then chief executive, after a meteoric rise since joining the organisation from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who at least could adjudicate on complaints.

But they would have known then that her appointment would end on March 31st this year – a year after the last permanent Ombudsman, Sir Rob Behrens, retired. You would think that would have given them plenty of time to find a successor and go through a thorough selection process. But Oh no, by the time she reverted back to her old job, nobody had been appointed.

As a result the press office had to issue this statement:

“We are currently awaiting news on the appointment of a permanent Ombudsman.

“Our dedicated staff remain committed to delivering an important service for the public.

There may be a small number of cases we are unable to progress without an Ombudsman in post. Caseworkers will directly contact any complainants whose cases are affected.”

Checking their website yesterday there has not been one new press release nor any new decision of cases announced since April 1.

Then suddenly last week it was announced that the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee were to hold a pre appointment meeting this week for a new Ombudsman. Extraordinarily the name was kept secret from the public record until this Tuesday.

I gather it was at the request of the favoured candidate, Paula Sussex, because it appears she had not told told her present employer, she is chief executive of OneID, that she had clinched the job.

Now yesterday there was a hearing. The current chairman of the committee, Tory MP, Simon Hoare, recused himself from the hearing as he had sat on the selection board leaving Labour MP, Lauren Edwards, to take the chair.

It was a very underwhelming event both from the appearance of the favoured candidate and the MPs questioning. For a start four MPs did not attend and those who did were mostly newbies whom I thought had yet to get in their stride.

The candidate herself appeared to know little about the working of the PHSO system and even less about the NHS. She appeared to be a management and process person steeped in working for the private sector rather than a person concerned about policy. This was noticed when she was chief executive of the Charity Commission when a profile of her highlighted this. The article is here.

She was also wary of journalists. The same article noted: “she has declined to give interviews: she is said to be unused to dealing with the media, disconcerted by the amount of press attention the commission attracts and confirmed in her reluctance to speak by any coverage she perceives as negative.”

Considering she admitted during the hearing that the Parliamentary Ombudsman had too low a profile – it strikes me she is going to have to be more proactive with the media if she wants to change it.

Her previous jobs have involved her as a consultant on new technology, working at a top level at the transactional Students Loan Company and for private industry.

Her most recent role is as a non executive director with the Infected Blood Compensation Authority which will ” sadly”, as she said, to have to give up. Given her sparse knowledge of the workings of the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s Office I was rather surprised she did not mention that her fellow non executive director is none other than Sir Robert Behrens, the last Ombudsman, who could have given her great detail about its inner workings.

Also it is rather ironic that this body – which despite its name is a private contractor not a public body- is to face a recalled two day hearing next month of the Infected Blood Inquiry under Sir Brian Langstaff because of public dissatisfaction with its handling of compensation and a slew of other complaints. Jenni Richards KC , the inquiry’s counsel, has just published a huge list of issues. See here.

Given some of these issues will be the very bread and butter work that a Parliamentary Ombudsman and Health Service Ombudsman would have to handle, someone might ask why she presided in an organisation that now faces such searching questions for not doing its job. Of course its minutes aren’t published so we won’t know whether she raised such issues or went along with the management.

Altogether I am sceptical of whether there will be great change at the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s Office and I am afraid her attitude and the lax scrutiny by the one committee that can hold it to account will mean any great change.

The committee of course do not agree and think she is wonderful. This is their conclusion In a report published after the hearing.

“We are satisfied that Paula Sussex has the personal independence and professional skills necessary to fulfil the high profile, demanding and varied role of Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. Paula
Sussex is an excellent candidate with a track record of organisational transformation with a focus on improving the effectiveness and external reputations of the organisations she has led. Her professional
background and experience as Chief Executive will aid her in giving the PHSO direction and certainty. We wish her every success in this role.”

Some 114 people applied for the job at a salary of between £171,000 and £189,000 a year -42 per cent were women.

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