COMPLAINTS relating to ministerial decisions and government maladministration more than doubled last year from 2024.
States Complaints Panel chairman Geoffrey Crill said it had been “a very busy year”.
His comments came alongside publication of the panel’s latest report, which revealed that there were 42 new cases submitted for review in 2025, compared to 19 new cases in 2024.
There were also 142 informal enquiries, compared to 24 in 2024.
“The subject matters of the complaints received in 2025 were varied,” the report stated.
“Many related to specific incidents where the complainants considered that the service they received had not been adequate or that there had been gaps in that service provision.”
Around 14 cases were closed as “not a matter for review”, while ten were closed or paused with an internal complaints process continuing, 13 are ongoing and a handful were resolved internally.
There were two hearings during 2025 – one fewer than in 2024 – and both complaints were upheld.
Mr Crill also stated that “challenges remain”, noting the presentation of a report by Deputy Moz Scott in support of a public services ombudsman.
He highlighted “the extremely difficult environment in which the Complaints Panel has had to work for the last eight years”, since an in-principle decision to create an ombudsman to replace it was passed by the States Assembly.
A review led by Deputy Scott concluded that the Complaints Panel provided “a final-stage complaint handler that is independent from most public services at a low cost”, but that it “falls short of suggested best-practice standards for ombudsperson schemes”.
She said that a public services ombudsman would “help embed a culture of timely, effective complaint resolution, reducing escalation, complexity, and unnecessary costs, this would provide strong social value, improve delivery standards, and help public services to meet public expectations”.
But in the foreword of the panel’s recent report, Mr Crill contended that it had seen “no evidence as to how an ombudsman service would provide a better service than the Complaints Panel can provide”.
“The appearance of Deputy Scott’s report some eight or nine months after it was expected
has done nothing to move the discussion on from where it was eight years ago,” he stated.
“Neither the current Assembly nor the new Assembly post-election can have any picture of what an ombudsman service would look like, what its remit would be, what its powers would be, to whom it would be accountable and, perhaps most importantly, what it would cost the taxpayer.”
