Report into Patrick Commissioners maladministration complaint 'should’ve considered more evidence'

Commissioner X asked current Tynwald Ombudsman to investigate that report

The Tynwald Commissioner for Administration has ruled Angela Main-Thompson should have considered more evidence when writing her report about a mishandled complaint to Patrick Commissioners

Paul Beckett was asked by Commissioner X, who was involved in the Patrick Commissioners maladministration case, to investigate the previous TCA and how she came to her findings.

Commissioner X contacted Mr Beckett in December 2023, a month after the original report was published.

That report followed a complaint of two residents whose grass bank was ‘sliced through’ rather than ‘scraped back’ making it unstable as well as the actions of the commissioners and the former clerk.

The handling of it was then deemed as maladministration by Ms Main-Thompson.

Commissioner X raised a complaint about the report produced which he claims lacked information from the clerk, no opportunity to present evidence to support himself and his identity was revealed.

Mr Beckett’s report says that new evidence was provided to him, but he would not be reinvestigating the matter of the original case because that’s not allowed as part of the role.

He contacted Ms Main-Thompson who said the investigation could’ve been ‘conducted differently’, but there is a ‘wide discretion’ with the role and she had ‘limited resources’ available.

She also said in the report that a ‘reasonable ombudsman’, in possession of the same facts would have reached the same conclusion – there had been a service failure on the part of the commissioners.

Ms Main-Thompson also concluded that there had been ‘action amounting to maladministration’ due to the way in which the work on the road had been undertaken by the local authority.

Commissioner X’s complaints were generally supported by the TCA, which included the ownership of the land not being ‘examined’, it shouldn’t have been implied that he broke a code of conduct, and he wasn’t contacted for a follow up interview.

Mr Beckett also ruled that Ms Main-Thompson should’ve spoken to third parties involved, who may have had evidence.

He added further that she did not identify Commissioner X and he has found reasonable grounds that the information Ms Main-Thompson had was complete whilst using powers available to her to get the evidence.

The full report can be found here.