3. Miss E complains that the OPG provided her with incorrect information regarding her mother’s attorneys.
4. She says that as a result, her relationship with her mother has broken down, and she has suffered from ongoing stress.
5. As an outcome she would like service improvements.
6. Miss E contacted the OPG to request confirmation of who the registered attorneys were on her mother’s Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA), as she was managing the sale of her mother’s house following a move into residential care.
What Miss E told us
10. Miss E says she had to contact the OPG to obtain confirmation of the attorneys listed on her mother’s LPA.
11. She said the OPG provided incorrect and conflicting information regarding the attorneys. She told us it provided a copy of a later LPA registered after the date of the LPA naming Miss E and her sister as attorneys. She was provided with two copies of the documents, one that listed her and her sister, and a second page that listed two other individuals.
12. As she was unaware of the names listed, she asked her mother, who also said she did not know the names that were listed. Miss E says that due to her mother’s previous behaviour and actions she did not believe her. This then led to a breakdown in relationship between herself and her mother.
13. Miss E says that the OPG failed to answer her points and refused to provide information due to General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).
14. As Miss E was unhappy with the reasons the OPG provided for not sending her the requested information, she raised a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
What the OPG said
15. Miss E contacted the OPG following receipt of the documents on 17 August 2020, to tell them there appeared to be an error and asked for some clarification.
16. The OPG responded on 21 August 2020 and told her it had discovered there was an error with the results she was given. It apologised to her for any inconvenience caused and explained that the last page she had been sent previously was incorrect. It then provided her with a copy of the correct results and confirmed the only LPA it held had Miss E and her sister registered as attorneys.
17. The OPG responded again on 3 September 2020 and apologised that the error had caused her problems with her mother. It explained the reason the error occurred was due to one of the template letters not being cleared before her results were completed. It said this was a rare error which does not normally happen as the document should automatically clear each time. It had also fed this error back to the staff member involved.
18. Miss E had asked the OPG to confirm if anyone else had made a request to search the register for her mother’s LPA. It told her it cannot provide this information to her as all searches to the register are confidential.
19. On 28 October 2020 the OPG provided a first-tier complaint response to Miss E. It said the staff member had used an old template, and this is why it did not clear automatically. It said that feedback had been provided to the member of staff involved, and it had explained Miss E’s concerns to them, as well as the implications it could have on others.
20. It confirmed a new template was now in place which does automatically clear, and therefore would prevent this error from happening again.
21. A second-tier response was sent on 11 November 2020, providing an additional apology. Miss E was seeking further explanation as to why the error happened, and the OPG said there is nothing additional it could add to the explanation it had previously provided.
22. The OPG said in this instance the error occurred because it overlooked the fact that additional (unrelated) parties were included in the correspondence it sent to Miss E about her mother. It reiterated that feedback had been provided to staff to ensure it does not happen again.
23. The reply acknowledged that Miss E had requested details of any other information requests related to her mother, however it could not provide this due to GDPR. The OPG confirmed that it had reported the incident correctly to its information assurance team.
24. Miss E disagreed with the OPG saying it could not provide the information due to GDPR. The OPG provided several more replies reiterating whilst it understood Miss E felt she was entitled to the information, it could not provide it to her under GDPR. It told her that any more correspondence she sent relating to the same issue would now be filed and not responded to.
25. As part of our enquiries the OPG provided us with some additional documents. This included a copy of a letter the OPG received from the ICO, following Miss E raising her concerns with the ICO.
26. The OPG told us that it had declined Miss E’s request for information regarding whether her mother’s care home had requested a search for the LPA. This information was declined due to data protection requirements.
27. As Miss E escalated her complaint to the ICO, the ICO contacted the OPG to review the way it had handled her request for information. This was dealt with by its information assurance team, and following a review of the case, it told us it was able to respond to Miss E to confirm no other search requests had been received regarding her mother. It now considered the matter resolved as Miss E has received the information she was requesting.
28. It told us that a correct and up to date template letter has been set up to automatically clear all fields when a new search response is being created, to prevent errors like this from occurring again.
29. The OPG wrote to Miss E on 30 March 2021, following contact from the ICO. It confirmed the question of whether any parties made a request to the OPG to search the register regarding her mother, would not be a breach of any individual’s personal data. It then confirmed it had not received any other requests for details other than the one from Miss E.
Our View
30. We can see from reviewing the complaint file, that as soon as Miss E raised her concerns the OPG acknowledged it had made an error.
31. In order to decide whether anything went seriously wrong we look at what happened and compare this with what should have happened. To do this we have asked the OPG to explain its process to us. While there is no formal guidance, it explained that usually the template used to send the information Miss E required is cleared before each search and checked over before being sent out.
32. In this case, the member of staff had used an outdated template letter. They failed to clear the existing information from the template and did not check it over prior to sending it out.
33. We can see from the complaint responses and correspondence from the OPG that this was a one-off error that occurred.
34. We understand that the erroneous information provided to Miss E caused her distress. We can see that the OPG has apologised for this on more than one occasion and has provided a sufficient explanation as to why the error occurred. We understand that Miss E feels that an apology is not sufficient, however we do not feel the OPG should do any more.
35. We are aware that Miss E suffered a breakdown in her relationship with her mother after receiving the OPG’s correspondence. While we appreciate that this may have caused some conflict between Miss E and her mother, we cannot say this was solely due to the OPG’s error. We are satisfied that the reassurances and apologies offered by the OPG were enough to put things right.
36. In reaching this view we have considered the OPG’s complaints procedure which states if it has made a mistake it will apologise, explain what happened, and put things right as quickly as it can.
37. We have also considered the Ombudsman’s Guidance on Financial Remedy. In our view, the impact that could reasonably be associated with the poor service in this case would be in line with level 1, which says:
‘A case will generally be level one if we consider the person affected has experienced a low impact injustice such as annoyance, frustration, worry or inconvenience, typically arising from a single (one-off) incidence of maladministration or service failure, where the effect on the person complaining is of short duration, and where there are no other adverse effects or ongoing wider impact. We will usually consider an apology to be an appropriate remedy for these cases.
38. We can also see that in addition to the apology, the OPG has also made service improvements by now ensuring that the correct (and up to date) template is now set up to automatically clear the fields, to prevent this kind of error from occurring again. We can also see that this was done in a timely manner in line with its policy, shortly after Miss E raised her complaint.
39. The OPG has also confirmed to us that it has now provided Miss E with the additional information she requested, and it now considers the matter to be resolved.
40. We find this, in addition to the apology and service improvements, is sufficient to remedy Miss E’s complaint, and therefore we will not be taking any further action with Miss E’s complaint.
1. We have carefully considered Miss E’s complaint about the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG). In considering the evidence submitted to us, we find that although there were some minor errors in the information the OPG provided, it has already done enough to put this right.
2. We understand the process has been frustrating for Miss E and has caused her stress, as the OPG were unable to provide her with certain information due to confidentiality.