What Do They Know FOI requests to the LGO

February 1st, 2010

We have added a second news page to the website displaying the latest Freedom of Information requests submitted to the Local Government Ombudsman using the What Do They Know Website.

Twitter now added to news page

February 1st, 2010

Just to refresh, any post submitted by anyone to this news input blog is automatically fed into the latest news page The latest 6 news items posted are shown on the news page but all posts are archived on the blog. The only condition is that it must about Ombudsmen or administrative justice in one way or another. Spam and inappropriate posts are removed

We also feed the last 6 blog posts from a number of blogs directly into the news page. If you click on the underlined blog title you will be taken to the home page of their blog, if you click on the underlined article title you will be taken to that particular post so you can read more on that story. If you have a blog or website which can generate an RSS feed and you would like it added please send me the link. Examples can be seen on the news page. Up to now we have three blog feeds, Trevor’s, Jagger’s and Lillian’s. It is important that RSS feeds are from continually updated sources so they do not become to static.

We have also just added twitter RSS feeds so if you twitter about administrative justice, an ombudsman or a council please send us your twitter RSS link and we will add it to the page. Again the last 6 tweets are shown but you can visit the tweeter’s home page or an individual tweet or even a link within a tweet.

New LGO

January 9th, 2010

Jerry White’s replacement, Jane Martin, starts work on the Monday the 11th January 2009.

Some of the things our supporters have experienced regarding the organisation of the Local Government Ombudsman

January 6th, 2010

They, lie to complainants ~ lie to Government Departments ~ lie to the public ~ collude with councils ~ fabricate documents ~ misinterpret statutes, policies and guides etc in favour of the council ~ manipulate evidence in favour of the council ~ use fallacious reasoning/argument to explain their perverse findings ~ don’t allow a complainant to see or challenge much of the evidence ~ manipulate/fiddle their statistics to hide the truth ~ manipulate/fiddle customer satisfaction surveys in their favour ~ are biased in favour of the council ~ don’t understand many of the technical and legal issues surrounding a complaint ~ often ignore legal and human rights issues ~ very rarely criticise any council officer for lying or misleading them ~ allow councils to misuse 1974 LG Act part III section 32(3) notices ~ very rarely admit their mistakes ~ often terminate a complaint after a quick telephone conversation with the council ~ are unaccountable ~ are not fit for the purpose ~ constantly raise the level of injustice a complainant has to suffer before they will investigate a complaint ~ often use linguistic gymnastics to evade the truth ~ use delay as a tactical tool to help councils and exhaust other avenues of possible redress ~ attack the complainant for asking a question rather than answering the question ~ misuse their own policy and guidelines ~ ignore natural justice and the law when it suits them ~ misuse discretion ~ are toothless tigers ~ dilute the remedies they recommend after discussion with a council ~ defy logic ~ double and in some cases triple count complaints to artificially boost complaint numbers ~ label complainants unreasonable when they challenge their perverse findings ~ alter deadlines to make it easier for councils to meet them ~ waste taxpayer’s money ~ don’t meet the criteria for membership of the British and Irish Ombudsman’s Association ~ are ineffective in reducing maladministration ~ betray the good citizens of this country ~ are impotent ~ allow councils to swap Ombudsmen but don’t allow complainants the same freedom ~ are guilty of mission creep ~ often use argumentum verbosium ~ ignore inconvenient facts ~ have developed a system in which maladministration pays ~ fail to meet complainant expectations ~ often ignore part of a complaint altogether ~ break their promises ~ fail to keep adequate records ~ they give investigators a bonus if they close a complaint down quickly ~ recruit most of their staff from councils.

Want to help? Then tell us about your experience or send us your evidence.

Number 10 petition website loses integrity!

November 3rd, 2009

There are four main reasons why the majority of our supporters will no longer sign a petition about Local Government Ombudsmen hosted by the Number 10 petition website. (1) We have proof that during the petition submitted by Keith Edmunds and ever since Number 10 have been removing supporters names from petitions. (2) Further, Number 10 do not keep a record of the number of names they have removed, the names of the people they have removed or even the reason why they were removed. (3) In addition, we also have proof that Number 10 base their responses on whatever the LGO tell them, and lastly (4) We have proof that the LGO lie to them. The Number 10 petition website and the Local Government Ombudsmen should be ashamed of themselves, but their actions are at least indicative of the LGO meltdown.

New Local Government Ombudsman named

October 9th, 2009

Dr Jane Martin has been named as the preferred candidate for appointment as the next Local Government Ombudsman following a public competition.

200th person signs Graham’s petition

August 31st, 2009

At 9pm today (Sunday) the 200th person signed Graham’s petition to get rid of the Local Government Ombudsmen. Please keep signing so we can put even more pressure on the Government to get rid of the LGO. You only have another 5 days in which to sign the petition.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Scrap-LGO/

Last few days to sign the latest petition

August 29th, 2009

Only a few days left in which to sign the petition submitted by Graham Crane. If you haven’t yet signed it please consider signing within the next few days. Graham needs 200 signatures in order to get a response from the government.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Scrap-LGO/

Record number of page hits

August 13th, 2009

We had a record number of hits on the Ombudsman Watchers Resource Centre website today. With this one particular page generating well over 100 hits by itself.

Research suggests Council Officers can lie with impunity to the LGO

August 11th, 2009

Read the results of a nine month research project which suggests that Council Officers can lie with impunity to Local Government Ombudsmen and their staff. You can also take part in the follow up research by sending us evidence of a Council Officer misleading, or lying to, a Local Government Ombudsman or their staff for inclusion in the final part of this research.