5.1. ECHO contains an option to publish or not publish the statement. 

5.2. The default position in ECHO is that all decisions will be published. It will not be possible to close a complaint on the system until the final statement is placed in the publication folder. But where one of the exceptions apply (see 3.3), publication will be suppressed. This will happen as follows:

• a. ECHO will not publish decisions where the decision reason is premature
• b. ECHO will not publish decisions where the case is open. When a review is requested, the case is reopened. Once the review is over, the case is closed and the original decision date will apply. If a new statement is issued as a result of a review, the new decision date will apply.
• c. Where an Investigator obtains the agreement of the AO/AM that a statement should not be published, the ‘not publish’ option can be selected. The final decision should then be saved in the decision folder rather than the publication folder. The investigator should include an explanation of why the statement should not be published in the freetext box on the publication screen. 

5.3. The statement for publication folder should only have one document in it – the final decision statement. All other documents relevant to the final decision should be saved in the decision folder. If previous versions of the final decision are in the publication folder, the oldest version will publish therefore it is vital that previous versions are moved out of the publication folder and into the decision folder.

5.4. If we receive a letter before claim under the pre-action protocol, or a notice of application for judicial review, the Assistant Ombudsman/Assessment Manager should consider whether publication of the decision statement is appropriate. They may wish to amend the publication flag to ‘no’ if it has not already been published, or request the decision statement is withdrawn from the website if it has been published. See sections 3.6 and 3.7 for getting the decision statement removed from the website and the publication screen reset. 

5.5. Multiple complaints

If there is a complaint where there are multiple complainants against the same BinJ, the investigator should ensure that each ECHO record has a copy of the decision statement in it. 

Where a complaint is against multiple bodies in jurisdiction, for example a joint working complaint, it is acceptable to produce one decision statement which covers the multiple BinJs involved in a complaint. 

5.6. Withdrawn complaints

If a complainant wishes to withdraw their complaint, and our consideration of it is at a very early stage, we can close the complaint by sending a letter, rather than have to create a full decision statement. When drafting your letter, you will also need to consider whether it would be inappropriate to inform the BinJ of any information other than the category and the fact an investigation was not initiated at the request of a complainant. These might include cases where, having explained that we are precluded in law from considering the issue, a complainant may seek to withdraw. Other cases may include those where, once we explain the process and the fact we are obliged to inform the BinJ of the name and address of the complainant and our decision, people decide not to proceed. In such cases, the letter would not contain any information about the complainant. In all cases, where we decide to issue a letter to close a withdrawn complaint, the publication flag should be marked as ‘no’. 

However, if a complainant wishes to withdraw their complaint because we have not found in their favour, we should still issue a decision statement and publish it. It would be unfair for the BinJ if we did not publish a statement where we found it had done nothing wrong.