Lord Knight of Weymouth
Main Page: Lord Knight of Weymouth (Labour - Life peer)Consumer Rights Bill
Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
I move Amendment 50K in this group on behalf of my noble friend Lord Stevenson and I will speak to Amendments 50M and 105A. This is an important and rather different set of amendments. Amendment 50K was tabled because of the increasing use of private or voluntary sector bodies to deliver services that historically were carried out by central or local government. In the UK, we have a long-standing and highly regarded system of ombudsmen for such services—for local or national government—whether provided by the NHS or by local councils, with such ombudsmen being free, independent and easily accessible. Indeed, it is one of the many advantages that users of local government services have, including recipients of social care. Where they have a complaint about any service, they can at a final stage take that to the independent Local Government Ombudsman, who adjudicates on the matter and can award redress if the service was found not to be up to standard. However, it is not clear to everybody whether users of contracted-out or commissioned services have equal access to the relevant ombudsman, so the amendment seeks to clarify this, not least to mandate clear signposting to first-tier complaints systems as well as to the ombudsmen.
There are wider questions about the redress landscape, which the Public Administration Select Committee has described and which Oliver Letwin, I understand, is now about to review. There are issues about the way things work now—for example, with, we hope, increasing and better co-ordination between hospitals and social care and a seamless move between the two. Interestingly enough, if there is a problem on the health side, it goes to one ombudsman, whereas if it is on the social care side, it goes to a completely different ombudsman. On the handover between the two, it can be difficult to know who was at fault. Even if you can identify that, you then have to find which ombudsman is the appropriate one. Luckily—I hope that some people in the Room will excuse me for saying this—both those ombudsmen are women, so they tend to get together and sort it out, but of course that will not always be the case with such organisations. The Committee will understand the problem.
This amendment does not try to solve the particular problem of overlap, but it deals with situations where a public authority contracts out work to a private provider. It aims to ensure that the user still has a clear pathway to the relevant ombudsman. Given that many public services are delivered these days through a range of bodies, it is hard for the consumer to follow the chain of accountability and to know where to turn if a service lets them down. Indeed, people do not always realise that if a local council has contracted out, it is still accountable, even though it may be another organisation that is delivering the service on the council’s behalf. Whoever is delivering publicly funded services, we believe that users should have access to clear, effective complaints processes, as well as the reassurance that in the final analysis they could take their complaint to an independent ombudsman.
Amendment 50K would ensure that the contract between the commissioning authority and the provider requires a proper complaints procedure, in addition to users knowing that they can refer their concern back to the local authority and then to the ombudsman. At the moment, councils always signpost complainants to the Local Government Ombudsman, but this amendment would ensure that all users of public services—we are particularly talking about social care—are equally well informed.
A brief example from the Local Government Ombudsman was where it had to remind councils that they remain responsible for the actions of, for example, care homes with which they work. The LGO undertook an investigation into Merton Council, which was responsible for a contracted private home. That home asked the family of an elderly resident to pay a top-up fee, but in fact the home had no right to that fee. The family happened to contact the council about where the payment should go and it was only then that it came to light that they were not due to pay the fee because the council had paid everything and the care home was not entitled to any more money. Interestingly, that complaint ended up in the right place because it had come to the notice of the local authority. However, in her findings, the Local Government Ombudsman, Dr Jane Martin, found against the local authority, reminding it that the law is clear: the actions of the care provider shall be treated as actions on or on behalf of the council, so the council was responsible for the care home seeking to extract funding from the family. She went on to warn other councils that they are responsible for any contracted activities that are provided. Clearly, not all councils and not all care homes know that and, even more obviously, not all users know it. We want public providers to ensure that all users are clear about their right to go to the independent ombudsman.
In the case of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, the health service is already required to signpost patients to the ombudsman. However, that is not the case for government departments, agencies or other bodies, such as the Electoral Commission, the Charity Commission and Monitor, against which complaints can be taken to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. If even those bodies do not know, certainly anyone they contract to do their work will not know either. An individual consumer could be applying to find out something from the Charity Commission and have a complaint, but of course they would not be signposted on. If they were involved in any payment, which they could be if it was for a service, they should be covered by this Bill.
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman knows that, where signposting is inadequate, there is a strange absence of complaints. Research undertaken in 2012 showed that almost half of the inquirers said that they had not been informed about the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman by the service provider. It is interesting to note that the remit of ombudsmen allows them to follow the public pound and therefore review the actions of bodies acting on behalf of the relevant public bodies, but few citizens know that. Under this Bill, where there is any sort of consideration or payment, as there could well be in respect of a day centre or for other services, we want to ensure that people are absolutely clear about their right to go to an ombudsman.
Amendment 50M speaks for itself. It asks the Government to look at how consumers who use contracted-out or commissioned public services are going to get a better deal along the lines provided for in the Bill. The chapter on services is pretty clear. When we have our windows cleaned or a kitchen installed, as we discussed last week, we know our rights. We know from earlier discussions that the Bill is also going to cover public services where there is an element of payment. We will be interested to know how the users of publicly funded but privately provided services will have their rights under this Bill enforced, as well as what independent advice they might be given to help them in this regard.
Finally, Amendment 105A would require statutory regulators to ensure that they develop proper user or consumer representation on their boards, as well as reviewing annually the consumer experience of the industry, including whether they are sufficiently well represented and listened to so that their rights under this and other legislation are protected.
Regulators exist in exactly those industries where the consumer cannot on their own behalf get a fair deal because the industries are effectively monopolies, or because the nature of the service is so complicated and specialised, as in the law, that clients are in no position to evaluate it or shop around, or because it is an essential service, or for some other market failure. Despite this, not all regulators put the consumer, in whose interest they are meant to work, first—sometimes because of industry capture or sometimes because they fail to see the consumer impact as they work at such a helicopter level. However, it is usually because they do not embed the end-users’ views into their decision-making. They decide policy without researching the consumer’s experience or views. They simply do not understand the ordinary person who pays the bill. This amendment would embed the consumer voice into the regulators’ governance, where it should have been from the start. I beg to move.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, the amendment raises an interesting question, which I thought I should take the opportunity of posing to the Minister. A cursory glance at Hansard from the other place suggests that the Government’s intention is that consumer rights in this legislation should apply to consumers of public services as well as private services, which is what the amendment addresses. The question that arises refers back to the last time I attended this Committee, when we were discussing consumers’ rights in the context of digital.
With normal goods, one has the right to return them and seek a refund or replacement. I am intrigued as to how that would work with some public services. For example, does this apply to the licence fee? If I do not like what I consumed on my television, do I have the right to a refund or replacement? Of course not, but how does that work in the context of the Bill? If I have paid tuition fees and I am not satisfied with the nature of the service that I receive from a university— I hazard a guess that quite a few students might at times have problems with, for example, the amount of access they have to face-to-face tuition—am I considered, in the context of the Bill, to be a consumer with the same rights as I would have in the private sector? I should be interested to know how that plays out. Or do we, as the amendment suggests, rely on the regulator? In which case, is that all pinned down properly in the Bill?
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, I support what my noble friend has said in moving the amendment. I want to address for a couple of minutes Amendment 105A, which deals with the issue of consumer representation and how it is reflected within the structures of our regulators.
In general, it is stated early in each of the relevant Acts that the regulators are there to protect, advance or reflect the interests of consumers of gas, electricity, water, telecoms or whatever it may be. Much of the drive within those regulators is indeed geared towards that. However, it is also true that a whole lot of other broader, less direct duties in relation to consumers fall to those regulators. Successive Governments have, rightly or wrongly—I will not go into that too much—placed additional responsibilities on regulators to have regard to wider issues, to long-term and short-term issues, and to social and environmental consequences, for example. One understands all this if we are to develop industry in a way that meets those wider objectives and looks after the interests of consumers.
Put gently, in some cases the duty to look after the interests of consumers, in a simple sense, has been slightly lost. Some of that reflects the fact that the personnel who form the boards and the senior management of these regulators by and large do not come from a consumer background. They come from various technocratic and business backgrounds and in some cases from an academic background and they have the expertise that is necessary to understand the industry that the regulator is dealing with. However, the voice of the consumer in a clear sense is much more difficult to identify.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, I strongly support this amendment. There are many good reasons to want to extend access to data for consumers of both private and public services. When Tim Berners-Lee famously invented the world wide web, he as famously said, “This is for everyone”. The use of digital products and services is something on which consumers are demanding movement, given that they observe a concentration of power over the internet in five companies globally, and have an increasing concern over the privacy of their data.
To give those consumers access to their personal data, as a starting point, is a way of giving more public reassurance about how their data are being collected and stored. It is also important in respect of innovation in the delivering of services. We have seen in public service delivery terms some of the innovation around the use of personal budgets. The ability to bring together services is an aspect that the use of personal budgets has demonstrated. That in turn can be significantly enabled by the use of personal data.
The register shows that I am the chair of the Tinder Foundation. It is nothing to do with the dating app, more to do with the organisation that runs all of the UK online centres. It is the main digital inclusion delivery organisation here in the UK. I am aware of the issues around exclusion by dint of access to technology and access to age; but I am also aware of some of the extraordinary stories of how people using data and using technology are able to join services together and improve their own personal outcomes.
I am also deputy chair of the Nominet Trust, which is a trust funded by Nominet, which registers domain names, to invest in social innovation, and I see some of the extraordinary innovation that is starting to come through from, largely, the voluntary sector, but also the private sector and just occasionally the public sector. It is that innovation that I am particularly keen to see. So I am delighted to see in this new schedule a section around access to information on public services.
If, for example, I had a chronic health condition and I went to see my GP, it would be great if the GP could say, “License to me just for five minutes, so I can put them through this digital tool, your shopping data from, say, Tesco, along with some of your health data, and some of your housing data”. The GP could see my lifestyle through the temporary licensing of personal data and then be able to give a much more accurate diagnosis of what was going on, how I might make some lifestyle changes and perhaps reduce my reliance on prescription drugs because some other behavioural changes can have a better outcome than use of those drugs. Similarly, I can see how advisers working for Jobcentre Plus could join up data on a temporary basis and provide a much more personalised service for people. Also, when I look at the GOV.UK site for its explanation of midata, it gives the important reason of improving buying choices for consumers as one of the reasons why it has set up midata.
This amendment is exceptionally modest in what it asks the Government to do. It is asking the Government merely to report. It is not really asking the Government to do very much except tell us what is going on. In that respect it is highly flexible; it accepts that there may implicitly be some burdens on small and medium-sized enterprises and that the Government will need to tell us which regulated persons should provide consumer data—so it is perfectly reasonable in the way that it has been drafted. It is the natural next step on from the Data Protection Act to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act of last year that we should be pushing further on this. These digital services are moving extremely quickly, and it is important that this Parliament shows the same agility that is being shown in the outside world. I strongly support these amendments.
Baroness Wilcox (Con)
I found it quite frightening listening to what the noble Lord was saying there. That sounded like the beginning of a great fire that he was putting his foot into. I go to my doctor and give him permission to find out data from me: where I shop, where I do this, where I do that. It is a simple thing to say, but where does it move next? I go to my moneylender and he says, “Well, tell me about this, give me permission to see that”. This sounds terribly frightening to me.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
The noble Baronesses articulate concerns that I know are active, and they do a great job in doing so. I am not suggesting that doctors should have rights to any of that data but that it would be up to the individual patient as to whether they temporarily license that data, to assist—
Baroness Wilcox
A patient who has gone to a doctor is more than likely not feeling well and is frightened and looking for any help they can get. It is so easy to say yes and to open up that can. It is such a dangerous subject to put in as a lightweight amendment to a Bill like this.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, I was using an example that I thought was perfectly realistic. We have seen with the furore around how care data have been handled or mishandled by the Government that the subject of health data is very sensitive, so perhaps I should have used a different example. However, personally, I am of the view that there are times when I want people who are advising me and the professionals assisting me to have rich sources of information about me and my condition, and that is a decision that I can make.
We need all to ensure that we are properly informed as consumers—and this legislation is trying to do that. To me, data are not a scary thing as long as we have proper individual rights over them. What scares me is that I cannot see what data people have about me and I cannot see how other people are using them. I may have some rights through the Data Protection Act but that does not give me any rights to see digital data. It gives me rights to see things on paper. Tesco can come and deliver in a pantechnicon all the data that it has about me, but I cannot then manipulate the data, which is in the end what I would really like—the ability to see them, manipulate them and then decide what I want. There are examples where you might want to use some of your data and license them on a temporary basis to people who then advise you so that they can better personalise their services. But that is a debate that this House should and I am sure will have.
Baroness Jolly
My Lords, Amendment 50L, proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Stevenson, and the accompanying schedule are about consumers having wider access to the data held on them. I make it clear that the Government support the principle that the public should have access to the data that is held on them; it is in line with our open data policies and activities and with the approach we are taking to the new European data protection regulations. We embrace the principle that, when social benefits can be obtained from anonymised datasets—so-called big data—that should also be supported. That is why, alongside the midata programme, which is concerned with commercially held data, we are also exploring how the data held on individuals by government departments might be made available to those individuals in a useful way. This work is in its early stages, but it is designed to ensure that individuals have access to the information that is held about them by the public sector. It is probably worth mentioning now that the Secretary of State for Health has committed that by 2015 we should all have access to our full health records. In parts of the country where this has been trialled, it has hugely empowered individuals.
I turn now to personal data held by companies and the midata programme. There have been two developments this year that are relevant to the debate. In the personal current account sector, we secured a commitment earlier this year from the big banks to provide consumers’ transaction records—their midata—as downloadable files with a consistent format. This work is progressing well and in June we were able to announce that the technical specification of the data fields to be made available has been agreed. This is no mean achievement. The work is on track to be completed by the end of March next year. This is something that Which? and the comparison sites have been calling for, and so it is very encouraging that the large majority of current account holders in the UK will soon have easy access to their midata files.
The second development is in the energy sector where the facility to download midata files has been available for some time. The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and the Minister for Consumer Affairs held a round-table meeting in June to discuss how the user experience of comparing the market could be made easier using automation. The round table involved energy suppliers, comparison sites, app developers, consumer groups, the Connected Digital Economy Catapult and Ofgem. As a result, a working group comprised of representatives of all these stakeholders has been looking at the feasibility of providing third parties with automated access to consumers’ energy data at those consumers’ request and with their explicit consent. This will avoid the rather tedious process for many of looking for their energy consumption and manually filing it in an online form in order to get an accurate comparison.
The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, raised the issue of collective switching, which is becoming very popular and is reducing energy bills for those who engage. In 2013, DECC awarded 31 successful projects a share of a £5 million competition for collective energy purchasing. I am pleased to report that the work has gone well and that a second ministerial round table at the end of the month will discuss the rollout of this project. The Government hope that the facility for consumers to compare deals quickly and with accurate energy consumption will be available this winter. Again, this is something that has the support of consumer organisations as well as the comparison sites.
The noble Lord also raised the issue of the Consumer Focus Confidence Code. In energy, Ofgem has taken over the former consumer confidence code. Other regulators such as Ofcom and the FCA also oversee comparison sites. In July, the Minister for Consumer Affairs published the results of a review of the voluntary approach to the midata programme that has been followed so far. It addressed the issue of whether the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 powers that became available to us were needed to speed up implementation. The conclusion of the review, in the light of the good progress I have described, was that it is not useful to proceed with legislation at the moment, but that the situation would be kept under regular review. Similarly, where it may be useful to apply the powers to other sectors, the Government are open to this where there is a strong case that doing so would deliver tangible benefits that a voluntary programme could not. The amendment encourages us to go faster and to use the legislation to force the pace. This could disrupt the voluntary programme which has already achieved a great deal. While it is a useful challenge, we do not need new laws to do this, as I hope I have demonstrated; we are doing it already.
The amendment also proposes that the midata powers should be extended to all services provided by the public sector. I have referred to work that is under way to explore how data held on individuals by government departments may be made available to those individuals in a useful way. I have also explained the reasons why services not provided by a trader to a consumer under a contract are not covered by this Bill. The amendment proposes that the Bill should require a report on the information that is provided to consumers about the services they may be commissioning themselves. A good example of where this is already happening is in the provision of care and support under the Care Act 2014. The obligations of local authorities to provide the information people need in an appropriate way are set out in statutory guidance that was published last week. This is just one example of where I believe the Government are already delivering what is being asked for in this amendment.
Finally, the amendment asks for an annual report about the impact of government policies in these areas. I have already talked about the Open Public Services agenda, and the Cabinet Office publishes an annual report on its work on this agenda, which has as an explicit objective to give people the power of choice about what services they receive and the information and insight they need to support that choice.
This year’s report was published in March on the GOV.UK website. One example given is about supporting parental choice on education: the Department for Education’s school and college performance tables provide parents with detailed performance data on primary and secondary schools and providers of 16 to 18 education. The tables received 2.8 million unique visitors in 2013. They provide contextual information, including absence rates, workforce numbers and finance and school census data. The Ofsted School Data Dashboard, which has received 800,000 unique visitors since it was launched in February 2013, provides an analysis of school performance over a three-year period, adding further insight to support parents.
In the light of what I have said, I hope that the Committee is persuaded that the Government take the provision of information to consumers of both public and private services seriously and that good progress is being made. I therefore ask that the amendment be withdrawn.