Sir Idwal Vaughan Pugh KCB (10 February 1918 – 21 April 2010) was a civil servant who was Permanent Secretary at the Welsh Office and distinguished himself as Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and Health Service Commissioner for England, Scotland and Wales (Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman).
Early life and war service
Pugh was born in 1918 in Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd to Rhys, a quarryman and later bus conductor, and Elizabeth, a schoolteacher. He was raised by relatives Thomas and Mary Vaughan in Ton Pentre in the Rhondda Valley and educated at Cowbridge Grammar School. He won an Open Scholarship to study Mods and Greats at St John's College, Oxford and graduated in 1940 whereupon he joined the Army.
Pugh served in the Royal Army Service Corps before transferring to the 7th Armoured Division (desert rats), with which he served in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. He served on the staff of Field Marshal Alexander in Caserta. Pugh had reached the rank of Major when he was demobilised in 1946.
Civil service
Pugh joined the Ministry of Civil Aviation as an Assistant Principal in 1946, where he organised supplies and chartered aircraft for the Berlin Airlift. He was also a delegate to the International Civil Aviation Organisation in Montreal. Pugh moved to the Ministry of Transport as Assistant Secretary, where he was put in charge of the Road Transport Division in 1956.
In this role, Pugh dealt with angry road hauliers during the fuel shortages caused by the Suez crisis. He also spent two years as civil air attaché in Washington, D.C. before he was promoted in 1959 to Under-Secretary. Pugh moved to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in 1961, where he became Deputy Secretary. During his time there, he chaired an inter-departmental inquiry into ways of modernising the planning system and his proposals for fewer and more independent planning authorities were broadly accepted by the government.
In 1969, Pugh became Permanent Secretary of the Welsh Office before moving to the much enlarged Department of the Environment in 1971 to serve with the Secretary of State for the Environment, Peter Walker as Second Permanent Secretary. At the department, Pugh acquired a dislike of the Treasury but nevertheless acquitted himself well during a challenging time.
Ombudsman
In 1976, Pugh was appointed Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. He would shape the role and demonstrated characteristics of toughness, rigid fairness, accuracy and independence. For his acceptance of the post, he was shunned by his former colleagues in government departments.
Pugh was dauntless in his criticism of maladministration within both Government departments and the National Health Service. He also brought with him an attitude that the Office should be more than a mere tool for members of parliament. To Pugh, the Office was the servant of the public. In this spirit, Pugh modified the filter system that required members of the public to take their complaints to the Ombudsman through their MPs.
In March 1978, Pugh permitted complaints to be made directly to the Office. If the complaint was investigable, it would be sent to the relevant MP who would be asked if a full investigation was wanted. Pugh achieved greater publicity for his role and functions through public appearances, posters and the use of the colloquial term Ombudsman, a word more readily understood by the public. He was rewarded with a record number of referrals: 1,259 in 1978 from 461 MPs.
After investigating a particularly serious instance of maladministration by the Department of Health and Social Security, Pugh was scathing in his criticism. It was discovered that the department had denied Lieutenant-Colonel Terence Otway the full amount of his disability war pension for 23 years despite knowing what the full amount should be. Pugh blasted this deceit and branded it deplorable. Twenty-five officers were found to have been treated similarly and the Director of Public Prosecutions considered whether charges should be brought against the officials concerned. Such was the public outcry, the Secretary of State for Social Services David Ennals was forced to apologise and new rules were established that forbade civil servants from denying a claimant their entitlement when owed money by a government department. Jack Ashley MP referred a complaint to Pugh concerning the policy about whooping cough vaccination. It was complained that the Government had not made available to parents all the information that they should have had before agreeing to have their children vaccinated.