Incompetent LeO is unable to provide simple information

As lawyers, we are accustomed to expecting investigations to be driven by practices which are recognisable from one investigative organisation to another with standardised procedures, template documents and of such-like.

A consistent and predictable way of operating can only be achieved if each and every member of the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) investigative staff has easy access to all of the resources necessary to properly conduct an investigation. Without these basic building blocks in place, there is little prospect of a consistent and predictable output. On the contrary, the quality of the output will vary in relation to the individuals involved. The chancellor's foot all over again?

Now imagine that you have just started your new job as an investigator with LeO and you are about to tackle your first complaint. It would be comforting to think that whatever comes your way you have been provided with all of the necessary documents and resources to work through your complaint file, if necessary, all the way to a final decision of the ombudsman.

Regrettably, the lot of the newly-appointed investigator is rather more fraught than you may think.

Take, for example, an issue which will come up at the beginning of every case, which is whether or not the complaint is made within the time jurisdiction of LeO.

When you, as the newly-appointed investigator, reach for your guidance manual, you will not find it. The fact is that LeO says it does not have "one manual on how to conduct an investigation". In response to a request for details of the documents available to members of staff conducting investigations, LeO has said that if it were required to bring together the available documentation, then it would have to "consult a number of departments" and "search a number of different locations" in order to do so.

The folks at LeO think it would take them more than 18 hours to assemble the documentation that the newly-appointed investigator will need to do the job properly. Each newly-appointed LeO investigator will, therefore, in order to get together the resources that they will need to conduct an investigation properly, have to spend the best part of a staggering three working days on a walkabout, 'consulting' and 'searching' as they go.

LeO does not aspire to operate as lawyers might have done but there are aspects of the legal heritage of the complaints service which should not be thrown out with the bath water. Operating in a consistent and predictable way is fundamental to the culture and practice of a properly run complaints service and should not be shunned merely because lawyers would do it in this way. SJ

Chris Kilroy is a solicitor at Kilroys