, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
So, your cases are higher by about 17 per cent this year than the previous year, because I think you received 9,863 cases this year as opposed to 9,328 the previous year. Can you outline how you've dealt with the increase in cases and what pressures that has…
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
And the feedback has been quite good on the whole, coming back from the public.
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
And managing their expectations, does that then come from historical data saying, 'Well, this type of complaint usually takes this long', therefore that's where you set it, or—? So, if somebody comes to you and says, 'I've got this complaint', it's this type…
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
Sorry, I jumped in ahead of you.
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
Can you give us a flavour of what that looks like? What is service quality?
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
Eighty per cent. Okay. Chris, did you want to add anything to that?
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
And what's the higher target?
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
So, you've no intention of changing that target; it's that you had to work towards it and it's actually improving service quality.
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
The proportion of service quality reviews deemed satisfactory or better was only 67 per cent, against your target of 75 per cent. So, I suppose, going from the conversation we’ve just had about KPIs and targets—this is the first year of the KPI—does that…
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
Thank you. Great. Sorry, I stopped you in mid flow with that as well.
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
I assume there’d be some narrative, then, as to why that’s potentially been rolled back, or made harder if the KPI is easily hit and you’re not stretching yourselves.
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
—and how do we as a committee, then, look at how it works from year to year? You could virtually stay still on a KPI, or be very good on a KPI, but your targets got easier over time, or harder over time. So, it’s just for us to understand that.
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
So, would that make the KPIs easier or harder, depending on how your case load is looking? Is that how you’re going to—? How do the targets and KPIs link together, I suppose? So, if you make a target higher, then it makes the KPI harder to hit—
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
Sorry, you talked about the KPIs. So, are they KPIs that will change annually, or are they KPIs that are set and that you’ll measure performance against, so you’re likely to keep the same KPIs so that you see differences?
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
Okay, diolch yn fawr. Thank you. Thank you for that overview, and we'll delve into some of this. Now, this is your first annual report and accounts following the publication of your strategic plan. How has the plan informed the operation of the office this…
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
Thank you for the papers that we've had already and the supporting documents. We've got your annual report and your estimate for next year as well. Right, we'll start with some questions to explore the performance in 2023-24, and then we'll come on to the…
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
A warm welcome to you this morning and thank you for the papers.
, Finance Committee
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales - Scrutiny of Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24, and Estimate 2025-26: Evidence session
Okay, we'll go to our substantive item this morning, which is item 3, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, scrutiny of the annual report and accounts and estimate for—. The accounts for 2023-24 and the estimate for 2025-26. We've got witnesses with us…
, Finance Committee
Papers to note
So, the papers to note. We've got one paper to note. Happy to note that paper? Yes, okay. Fantastic.
, Finance Committee
Papers to note
Therefore, we will move on to the papers to note.
, Finance Committee
Introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest
Well, good morning and welcome to this meeting of the Finance Committee. It's good to see everyone present. We know that Rhianon Passmore is on her way, but she hasn't arrived yet, so she has sent her apologies that she hasn't arrived quite yet. This meeting…
, Plenary
Topical Questions
We've heard from a number of councils that they're going to have to make further cuts to a number of their services that they don't have a legal duty to provide. For example, Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council and Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council…
, Plenary
Topical Questions
I thank Peter Fox for asking this question.
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Trefnydd and Chief Whip
One thing that I think we can all agree on is that the public transport network is not where we'd like it to be in Wales. For anyone with a car, this is an inconvenience, if they would prefer to travel by bus or rail. If you are without a car, because you…
, Plenary
Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Trefnydd and Chief Whip
Thank you for that response.
