What counts as maladministration, and how to prove it

"We followed the policy" is the most common defence a council, housing association, or NHS body gives in a complaint. It is also a defence that doesn't work where the policy itself was applied without judgment, without timeliness, or without the duty of fairness. That gap has a name: maladministration. It is also the test the Ombudsman uses.

This article explains the test, the categories that fall inside it, and how to draft a complaint that lands the argument in the right place.

What does maladministration mean?

The classic short definition comes from a 1967 parliamentary debate (the so-called Crossman catalogue) and has been refined by the Ombudsmen ever since. It captures any situation where a public body's conduct in administering its functions falls short of reasonable standards of decision-making, communication, or fairness. It is not a finding that the body's substantive decision was wrong. It is a finding that the way the decision was reached, communicated, or executed was wrong.

In Ombudsman language, maladministration covers things like:

• Unreasonable delay
• Failure to follow your own procedures
• Failure to give reasons for a decision
• Failure to take a relevant consideration into account
• Failure to apply judgment, treating discretion as automatic
• Discourtesy, harassment, or oppressive conduct
• Failure to keep adequate records
• Misleading information
• Bias or the appearance of bias

If you can frame your complaint inside one or more of those categories, the Ombudsman has jurisdiction. If you can only argue that the body's underlying decision was wrong, you are usually outside the Ombudsman's reach.

The test in practice

The Ombudsman applies a two-stage test:

1. Was there maladministration? (Did the body's conduct fall inside one of the categories above?)
2. Did it cause injustice? (Did the maladministration leave the complainant worse off than they would otherwise have been: financially, practically, or in terms of distress?)

Both stages must be answered yes. Maladministration without injustice is sometimes recorded as a "service failure" but doesn't usually generate a remedy. Injustice without maladministration is outside the Ombudsman's jurisdiction.

What it is not

Maladministration is not negligence. It is not a tort. You cannot sue a council for maladministration directly. It is a regulatory finding by the Ombudsman that triggers recommendations: apologies, refunds, policy changes, sometimes small financial payments for distress. Where you want a court remedy, you need a different cause of action (judicial review, breach of statutory duty, sometimes negligence).

Maladministration is also not the same as a wrong decision. The Ombudsman will not substitute its own view for the council's view of the merits. It will only ask whether the council reached the view in a defensible way.

How to prove it

Three things land the argument every time:

1. Identify the procedural failure precisely

Don't write "they handled this badly". Write "the council did not respond to my Stage 1 complaint within the 20 working days set out in its published complaints policy" or "the housing officer did not visit the property despite my request, and there is no record of the request being considered".

The more specific the failure, the harder it is to defend. Generic anger is dismissed; specific procedural failures aren't.

2. Tie the failure to one of the recognised categories

In the complaint letter, name the category explicitly:

"This is, in my submission, maladministration: specifically, [unreasonable delay / failure to follow procedure / failure to apply judgment]."

Ombudsman investigators read complaints faster when they know which category to test against. Anonymous "this is unfair" complaints get worked through more slowly because the investigator has to do the categorisation themselves.

3. Quantify the injustice

The Ombudsman's recommendations track the injustice. If you can show:

• Money out of pocket because of the failure
• Time spent fixing what shouldn't have needed fixing
• A worse practical outcome (eviction, missed appointment, lost benefit)
• Documented distress (medical evidence is rare but powerful)

then the recommendation will engage with each of those heads. Vague "this caused stress" usually attracts a small uplift; documented distress with consequences attracts more.

Example, anonymised

A consumer disputed council tax liability. They lodged an appeal with the Valuation Tribunal. While the appeal was active, the council referred enforcement to a private bailiff firm. The consumer asked, in writing, for enforcement to be paused until the tribunal decided. The council refused without giving reasons. The bailiff firm continued with phone calls and texts.

The maladministration argument is not "the council was wrong about the tax". The Ombudsman won't decide that. The argument is: the council failed to apply judgment, failed to give reasons for refusing to pause enforcement, and continued with disproportionate enforcement during a live judicial process. Each of those is a recognised category. The injustice is the distress and the bailiff fees levied during the dispute period.

That complaint is in scope. A complaint that just said "I shouldn't have to pay this tax" is out of scope.

What usually happens next

A maladministration complaint that names the category, identifies the procedural failure, and quantifies the injustice gets engaged with on its merits. A general complaint gets dismissed as "the body has discretion" or "the matter is for the courts". Roughly speaking, well-framed Ombudsman complaints succeed in some form (apology, refund, recommendation) in 30 to 50% of decided cases; poorly framed ones don't survive jurisdiction.

Realistic timeline: 4 to 8 weeks at each internal stage of the body's complaints process, then 6 to 12 months at the Ombudsman.

The bottom line

Maladministration is not a synonym for "bad decision". It is a specific test about how a public body conducts itself. Identify the procedural failure, name the category, quantify the injustice. That is the shape of complaint the Ombudsman is built to engage with. Anything else gets bounced.

Docketory publishes general information based on real disputes. Identifying details are changed and patterns from multiple cases may be combined. This is not legal advice. For advice on your specific situation, contact a solicitor or Citizens Advice.

Related on Docketory:

• Blog 2: Council tax: appealing doesn't pause the bailiffs. Here's what does.
• Blog 2b: The Local Government Ombudsman complaint, line by line
• Blog 2c: Council tax appeals at the Valuation Tribunal: what to expect