Archive for the ‘Ombudsmen’ Category

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Scottish Public Services Ombudsman ‘not worth a farthing’

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

HOUSING Minister Alex Neil claimed yesterday that a £3.5million public sector watchdog was “not worth a farthing”.

He told MSPs that the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, which investigates complaints about the likes of councils and the NHS, should be rebuilt.

Mr Neil admitted that he’d encouraged six families to send in identical petitions demanding action.

He said: “One lady waited three and a half years for her complaint to be dealt with and, when it was, it was so full of factual errors as to be not worth the paper it was written on.

“There are a number of MSPs who are all of the same view that, quite frankly, it’s not worth a farthing. It is not value for money.

“What is of fundamental concern is the total lack of robustness in its investigations.”

But last night SPSO’s £70,000-a-year Ombudsman Jim Martin said: “The SPSO he is describing is the SPSO of 18 months ago.

“Mr Neil is one of the MSPs who has sought to place undue pressure on this office.”

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Reform of the ‘outdated and inconsistent’ public service ombudsmen.

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Plans to reform “outdated and inconsistent” public service ombudsmen will make it easier to complain about poor services, the Law Commission said today. Download their press release, summary and full documentation. Dead line for responses 3 December 2010.

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Spending Challenge: Suggestions that involve the LGO now live.

Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

After a brief absence the Spending Challenge website has now published many of the suggestion. Ones that include the term Local Government Ombudsman can be read here. Those that include the term LGO can be read here.

Don’t forget to rate/vote for your favourite!

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Live Case Study

Friday, August 20th, 2010

This is an example of a Local Government Ombudsman Investigation as it happens, you will be able to follow the progress and comment on any aspects of it as it goes along. Please use the comment box below. After the initial letter of complaint was submitted the Ombudsman responded with a letter of clarification.

The complainant’s response to the LGO’s  letter of clarification. The response from the Council was received by the LGO and he confirmed this in writing to the complainant on 14 July 2010. Nothing further was heard so the complainant put in two Freedom of Information requests to obtain the response from the Council – One FOI request to the LGO and one FOI request to the Council.

The LGO then responded by email on the 13th Aug 2010 at 13.04 stating that he had not replied because some of the information was marked ‘confidential.’ The complainant repllied to the LGO’s email stating that all information should be released.

Further email sent to LGO from complainant 13 August 2010 18:46:18 GMT enclosing an article in the Local Newspaper with a comment underneath about the Chief Executive Portsmouth City Council being a Freemason.

The LGO responded by email on the 20th August 2010 at 18.06 stating that he had arranged for the Council’s comments and enclosures that he was able to send to the complainant to be forwarded to them.

The complainant received a letter dated the 19th August from the LGO together with the Council’s comments. The complainant sent the LGO an email on the 23rd August 2010 and received an acknowledgement on the 24th August 2010.

Further information on this investigation will be added as it goes along.

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OMG!

Saturday, August 14th, 2010

Although the Audit Commission is being disbanded, Eric Pickles stating “The corporate centre of the Audit Commission has lost its way. Rather than being a watchdog that champions taxpayers’ interests, it has become the creature of the Whitehall state.”

An unfortunate spin off detriment is that Eric Pickles also thinks that strengthening the powers of Local Government Ombudsmen,  to give residents greater rights when local services go wrong, is the way forward. Read more here

Obviously, other than LGO spin,  Eric knows sod all about Local Government Ombudsmen because they too have become a creature of local government who no longer champion the interests of (local) taxpayers.

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The LGO knows better than our leaders

Friday, August 6th, 2010

The Home Office/Respect and the Department for the Communities publish advice on Tackling Nuisance Neighbours and state that Antisocial Behaviour is often a series of incidents over a period which can ruin people’s lives, even if they are not in themselves serious incidents. In our case some of them are and have involved the Police over 13 years. The LGO however states that the Government advice is wrong.

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LGO derisory awards

Sunday, August 1st, 2010

I have received a letter from the LGO recommending that the county council pay £250 compensation in respect of “hurt feelings” for a whole string of items:-

An email was sent around by the council saying there were allegations of sexual abuse not yet proven when there were in fact none as evidenced by the LGO letters and replies from the county council legal services department: lies about police advice: several false recordings on chronologies: one sided recording on a social services report where my concerns and answers were dismissed merely as issues yet my ex wife’s allegations were recorded in full and no efort was made to corroborate these: i was lied to about stage 3 complaints process; stage 2 was not completed as staff relevant to the enquiry were not interviewed and when i read the report my concerns and comments were ignored; disclosure was made of third party comments to the court detrimental to my character which were not requested by the court and the council have refused to disclose the reasons for such disclosure merely saying they had a duty to do so under statute and guidance notes but have failed to provide these; briefings were held by council staff and councillors where they discussed allegations of domestic violence and yet I have never been questioned about this by the police nor by the council. All this and I get a sum of £250 no wonder the councils are a law unto themselves.

I now would like the name of a decent solicitor to take the council to court for the defamatory comments made which I have already proven and then to take them on with regards to other matters but having been off work with stress and depression I cannot afford to pay so it would need to be on a no win no fee basis but the main defamatory comment has been proven already.

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More Scottish petitions

Sunday, August 1st, 2010

3 new e petitions raised by 3 members of the public who are calling for reform of the spso. So far this year there will have been 5 petitions calling for reform of the spso and Integrity 4 Scotland intend to submit another one in the within the next 2
months. The links to the 3 new petitons are detailed below:-

http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/view_petition.asp?PetitionID=400

http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/view_petition.asp?PetitionID=401

http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/view_petition.asp?PetitionID=402

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Abolish the TLA (Three Letter Abbreviations)

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

The new Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles M.P., recently made a speech to the Local Government Association in which he pledged to “Abolish the TLA (Three Letter Abbreviation)”. He asked members of the public to send ideas to cutredtape@communities.gsi.gov.uk.  A supporter has emailed and suggested that another TLA which should be abolished is the LGO.  Other supporters may wish to do the same.

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Information Commissioner to get tough on public authorities

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Today the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) sets out the measures (PDF download) that public authorities will face if they routinely fail to meet the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR). Organisations will face action from the ICO if they regularly fail to issue a response on time, refuse to disclose information without specifying an exemption, or if they fail to respond to a request altogether. The tougher approach to enforcing the Freedom of Information Act will ensure individuals get speedier responses from public bodies.

Mick Gorrill, Head of Enforcement at the ICO, said: “Organisations that take FOIA seriously will have advice and support from the ICO. The public bodies that continually fail to meet their legal obligations will face regulatory action. Using FOIA can take too long and is sometimes overly cumbersome for members of the public. After monitoring authorities’ compliance with the Act, we will take action against those that abuse the system.”

The ICO will be making more use of regulatory powers including Enforcement Notices, Undertakings and Practice Recommendations to improve compliance. Where there is evidence that a public authority is regularly or seriously failing to meet its obligations, the ICO will not hesitate to take regulatory action, particularly where organisations fail to respond to requests in a timely manner. The ICO has identified timeliness as a key target for action, in recognition that a quarter (between 20–25%) of FOIA complaints to the ICO relate, at least in part, to the time taken for public bodies to respond to requests.

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