My letter to the new British Prime Minister.
Please email me for the enclosures or look them up on my personal website.
6 August 2026
The Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP,
Prime Minister,
10 Downing Street,
London, SW1A 2AA
Dear Prime Minister
If I may I wish to add my personal perspective on how and why public services in UK are just not working.
Since then I have had to deal with many officials at national and local level. Unlike when I served in local government in the 1970s and 80s, I get the impression that their hearts are not in their work. They do not try to get things right in the first place. They do not take care to communicate their decisions to people affected, nor to tell them what options there are to take matters further. They no longer serve their public.
Now if that is not bad enough, I've seen a series of check and balances intended to right wrongs that don't work or just don't work well enough.
• Regulators don't regulate or intervene if they can avoid it.
• Inspectors don't inspect, or tend not to find faults, as if they do, they are ignored. One advocate of customer service was sacked. A predecessor was compelled to resign.
• Examiners don't examine, are reluctant to accept cases for review, and if they do their default is to side with the officials, not that the officials they review pay heed to them anyway.
• Ombudsmen don't “ombud”. They too avoid accepting cases. If they are persuaded to do so, it then raises justifiable doubts about how they exercise their judgments thereafter.
It is my contention, Prime Minister, that the government must tackle these poorly performing enforcers of good public service, as well as those original civil servants and local government officials not performing well, if the reputation of British public life is to be restored.
We need to know to whom and how are the enforcers accountable? Each in various ways is given independence to operate with no outside “interference” in case-work. One Parliamentary Committee has already asked “Who regulates the regulators?” Are these exclusive powers assigned to “experts” at the expense of everyday common-sense that our elected members are supposed to bring?
At times I have submitted evidence to Parliamentary Committees and Enquiries. Very often this evidence is not accepted even though I cite examples to illustrate systemic failings. I am told they don't accept personal cases. With respect without personal cases, duly collected and analysed, and repeated failings and patterns identified from successive cases, Committees don't get full pictures.
I set out in the attached paper a summary of personal cases to illustrate my contentions and images relevant to one.
Yours sincerely
House 444, Takhmau, Kandal, Cambodia (Until 9 September.)
19 Hotspur St, Alnwick, NE66 1QE, Northumberland.
Incidences of repeated failures of administrators and the bodies checking their conduct
9 May 2016
By pure chance I was visiting my elderly Aunt who was suffering from Alzeimer's disease when the postman delivered a letter. She stared at it for some time then handed it to me. “Do you know what they're on about?” It was odd because it was headed Northumberland County Council with its logo but with the addition of “CapacityGrid” of Market Place Nelson in Lancashire, their company engaged to chase up arrears. They had arbitrarily cut off her council tax support and benefits due to a “Mrs Anne Carr” living with her and not having been declared as such. Mrs Carr, her sister-in-law, actually lived in South Africa. Due to unreliable post she had simply had the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Authority (DVLA) send her renewed diving licence c/o of my Aunt for safekeeping until she could collect it when back in the UK.
9 December 2016
My Aunt died having attaining the great age of 89. I had bought a house for her on condition that she could live there but it would come to me on her death, and I could stay there whenever in UK. Earlier that year I took a rented flat rather than disturb her later years. Northumberland County Council immediately cancelled my Housing and Council Tax benefits due to my new capital assets, They also made me take over full Council Tax payment on the house. I asked for relief given my low income and due to the fact that the house needed essential electrical and plumbing work. My plan was to make this 4 bed house available to needy families as they were and still are in short supply. The Council said they could only consider relief if I sold it, so we put it on the market and later for auction, but it did not sell. But they gave no relief. Had I been a private landlord, one year relief on Council Tax was given for essential repairs. I asked about appeal rights and was informed only about to the Valuation Tribunal. Later I learned that I could also appeal to a Social Entitlement Chamber a body I had never heard about. So I wrote to them and was told “you are out-of-time”. I asked for an exception to be made due to not being informed of them. Northumberland County Council insisted that they had informed me. I checked every letter in the post and email sent to me. I checked their website and nowhere was there a reference to that body. It was never mentioned in any of several long telephone calls with officials and not even after a Councillor (today an MP) took the issue up for me. The Chamber accepted the Council's insistance and refused to consider my appeal.
“Pensioner poverty?” This occurred before I received my state pension. My wife and I had only my small private pension income of £400 a month to live on. The burden of paying two full Council Taxes, and unabated rent - until I had to give up the flat and move in to the house – severely depleted my savings and caused us to have to survive on under half the pensioner couple income used by DWP for pension credit purposes.
25 December 2016
Local Cambodia NGO, a group of families living with disability, had to finally admit defeat when all options to continue their fight ended. 800 had jointly expressed their grievance against a British charity back in August 2008. They simply wanted to know why they never received the money and benefits promised to them by the charity, awarded to them by the Diana Princess of Wales Fund? They had been finally thwarted in the UK after the Parliamentary and Health Commissioner on 19 April 2013 ruled “We cannot question the merits of a discretionary decision.” Judicial review was not possible as a pro-bono Solicitor could not be found. The Charity Commission eventually ruled in 2012 “Charity trustees have a wide discretion as to how to run their charities and it is prohibited from interfering in the internal administration of a charity”. It declined to investigate accepting the charity's claim that “it had used the money in accordance with its objects”. The charity had even confiscated the NGO's own groups' financial records to stop an external audit to establish the facts. The poor people, and supporters including the Diana Fund, the DfID Desk Officer, the CBM country representative and several MPs all believed “that all funds raised for a particular cause must be used for that cause.” Before the poor people were able to access the Parliamentary Commissioner, they had to appeal to the Independent Complaints Reviewer of the Commission who ruled on 3 December 2012 that “the Commission's case-work decision is not eligible for review".
23 March 2020 (an issue unresolved to this day)
Shortly after my Cambodian wife and I arrived in UK for a three month stay the UK Government announced the first Covid 19 lockdown. It also decided that “that no-one should be punished for overstaying in UK due to Covid19” with international travel at a virtual standstill. We dutifully applied for extensions of stay on time, bizarrely called “certificates of exceptional assurance”, but often when issued the wife was told “you must regularise your stay in the UK”. So we kept replying to ask what they meant and as they never replied we asked our MP who raised the question with the Home Office. They still never replied. In May 2021 the government began to ease international travel restrictions and on October 11, 2021 when removing countries from its Red List, it ordered my wife to leave UK within two weeks. Cambodia at that time still had its borders firmly closed. My wife was also due her next Covid booster by December, so we asked for more time. It was refused. So again we asked our MP to intervene. By good fortune Cambodia eased its controls on 15 November although only one expensive airline was flying there, so we were able to arrange flights and after her booster if not before full immunity would have built-up. We were also worried about the then Omicron variant surging in SW London and the risk of carrying it on our travels and in to Cambodia.
9 January 2020 as still no replies directly to me or my MP, I lodged a formal complaint with the Home Office Complaints Team. The Home Office undertakes to reply within 20 days. While the complaint was pending my wife could not apply for the renewal of her 10 year UK multiple entry visa. Eventually after repeated follow-ups the Team replied 10 month later to “partially uphold the complaint” but in doing so it raised more questions. (It did, however allow us to obtain the new UK entry visa but only after our expensive air tickets were cancelled no refund by the airline.) So we appealed to the Independent Examiner of Complaints who found the Home Office equally unable to respond or provide information as they did to my MP or to us. I managed to get more details from a Freedom of Information request. Eventually on 24 January 2024 the Examiner confirmed our “complaint was fully upheld”. However only basic compensation was awarded. The Home Office apparently “cannot be held accountable for the expense, difficulties and uncertainty you faced". Instead we were awarded £500 in accordance with Guidance on Financial Remedy for “distress, annoyance or worry for up to 6 months £120-£550”. We appealed that to the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman who initially did not want to take the case. Eventually in October 2024 he endorsed the Home Office actions including the offer of token compensation saying that “they have followed their Principles of Remedy 2009 and Guidance on Financial Remedy”.
As for distress, worry and annoyance that “fades after 6 months” and “diminishes in the fullness of time” well 5 years on there is no closure is there? Plus every time we arrive back in UK, after long haul flights, Border Force must [quote] “subject... a Briton and a non-British national....to further questioning”. Hence twice now we have been hauled out the queue and placed in the naughty corner.
I have asked about who is responsible for the Remedy scheme, to see if we can ask for updated changes, but no reply has been given. The case is still live with my current MP and not even the token £500 has been paid to date.
In my FoI request details provided, an internal Home Office message stated that “we have been inundated by requests to stay another 3-6 months for them to obtain Covid boosters” so “the decision was made.... it is not a good enough reason not to leave”. I have referred this arbitrary decision, not made public, seemingly without official Health Ministry input, with documentation, to the Official Covid Inquiry. It might be in Module 10.
4 June 2021
On attaining the age of 70 I applied for a new Driving Licence. As previously I used the Government Gateway site to access DVLA and the new licence arrived. However several weeks later I discovered a “legal charge” of £80 to my Lloyds Bank account that I traced to the relevant date. The DVLA website said there is no charge for this service, so I reported it as a scam. Two Lloyds Bank employees, who both said they had “never heard of any Government Gateway” ruled that as I received my licence it was not a scam. They told me to contact whoever levied the charge but refused to help me trace him or her via their recipient bank. The Department of Transport thanked me for reporting the issue, saying that they were taking down such false illegal mirror sites. I reported the issue to the Financial Ombudsman who ruled: “there is no basis on which I can fairly and reasonably require Lloyds to refund” the £80.
28 July 2026
The Pensions Ombudsman has ruled that my appeal for a widow's pension for my wife is out-of-time. Apparently I should have pursued an appeal any time after Dorset Pensions Authority indicated its view back in 2011 about lack of proof of marriage in Cambodia in 2000. Its stance then and repeated several times in years since, and to today as at its formal internal adjudicators' hearing in December 2025 is that we can and must re-marry in the UK time to qualify. Then the widow's pension would be awarded on my death. We therefore always thought that was our final option. Our Financial Adviser in 2011, himself an ex-Local Government Superannuation Officer, questioned their interpretation as well as suggesting other “routes” such as for co-habiting couples. Since then of course survivor benefits are payable to civil partners and even to children, which is why I did return over the years to ask the authority to reconsider again. At no time was it made clear to me that theirs was a final irrevocable decision, that I could or should appeal against internally or to the Pensions Ombudsman. However in 2025 with age and poor health catching up with me I wrote formally to the authority for a final definitive decision. This was given with the option to refer to their adjudicators and to the Pensions Ombudsman. The adjudicators confirmed the authority's decision in December last 2026. I therefore wrote to Alnwick Northumberland Registration Service about marrying. To my surprise they replied to say that if we had married in #Cambodia, we cannot re-marry in UK, unless we furnish proof of divorce. Obtaining that in Cambodia after 26 years of married life together is impossible. So no widow's pension.
Has Dorset been wrong all these years? Surely this a question appropriate for the Pensions Ombudsman? Yet she says I should have raised it years ago. Ironically the authority's case to the adjudicators just last December included stating that it must follow a precedent of the Pensions Ombudsman decision in 2019 in Ms Y (PO-27699) (para 21, page 5. Sorry I was not blessed with foresight in 2011.
No comments:
Post a Comment