BBC (Scotland) reporter asks at the foot of his story, about a South Lanarkshire councillor ‘knowing’ a property developer, “Do you have a story you want me to investigate?” Why not read his article and then drop him a line http://is.gd/df0jk . It must be about time someone investigated Ombudsmen and not just councils. Especially since Ombudsmen and other watchdogs have patently failed to report let alone stop council corruption.
BBC investigation into a council planning department.
July 4th, 2010Scottish Public Service Ombudsman Petition
June 30th, 2010Please spread the news about this petition to all who you know even if they never passed by an experience at the SPSO e.g. family members, friends and colleagues. Explain to them the pain you have faced and ask them to sign, so no one else will suffer in the SPSO again. If we do something, we should expect a change. However, if we do nothing, the same pain will remain in the SPSO.Please note Jim Martin has to reapply for his position in the coming several months. This petition will possibly influence the parliament decision to extend for him further year or not (hopefully not). His first term will end May/2011. ????
Please follow the link to support ending the public pain at the SPSO by signing this petition
http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.u … tionID=398
R. A. Rahman
The Great Inertia Sector: A whistleblower’s account of council work
June 27th, 2010A must read for all those working in the private sector or using the services of their local council. An account of public sector working conditions penned by a planning officer. This will shock readers to the core! The question one must ask is does this happen in other public sector organisations or quangos such as the Local Government Ombudsman? When will the government carry out an independent investigation into all public bodies and stop this sort of practice?
Government considers ombudsman merger
June 25th, 2010LGO and Housing Ombudsman may be merged.
Grant Shapps is understood to be considering creating a single service for social landlords which would fund itself through charges levied on landlords. The HOS is due to take responsibility for all complaints against social landlords under plans to abolish the Tenant Services Authority, announced by the housing minister last week.
Housing ombudsman Mike Biles said the topic had not been mentioned in detail in meetings with Mr Shapps.
“I have said to CLG that I am very keen to do whatever I can to help the Secretary of State and ministers to achieve their objectives,” he said.
The local government ombudsman did not wish to respond.
Victory for What Do They Know website
June 9th, 2010A new decision this week by the Information Commissioner’s Office represents a significant victory for the FOI requesters’ website whatdotheyknow.com in its battles with the few public authorities that object to its mode of operation – in this case, the House of Commons. The ICO has ruled that the House has to comply with a freedom of information request submitted through whatdotheyknow, even though it means that its response will be automatically published on that website. Read the full story here
The Case of Mr and Mrs Wain verses Stoke-on-Trent City Council
April 18th, 2010The LGO did not find Stoke-on Trent Council guilty of maladministration because she asserted that the Government Office West Midland was at fault. However, the Parliamentary Ombudsman Investigated the Government Office West Midland and totally refuted the claim put forward by The Local Government Ombudsman. Read more here.
Latest question about the Local Government Ombudsman
March 27th, 2010Stewart Jackson (- Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Peterborough, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many complaints have been (a) submitted to and (b) upheld by in whole or in part the Local Government Ombudsman in each year since 1996.
Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Yorkshire and the Humber), Department for Communities and Local Government; Doncaster Central, Labour)
The following table shows the number of complaints submitted each year and the number of complaints in each year on which either a local settlement was reached or the Ombudsman issued a report finding maladministration.
Complaints submitted Complaint settled locally or reported on by Ombudsman.
1996-97 15,322 2,752
1997-98 14,969 2,694
1998-99 15,869 2,624
1999-00 17,555 3,060
2000-01 19,179 3,945
2001-02 18,309 4,331
2002-03 17,610 3,857
2003-04 18,982 3,363
2004-05 18,698 3,042
2005-06 18,626 2,962
2006-07 18,320 3,088
2007-08 17,628 3,057
2008-09 21,012 2,885
Visit They Work For You and submit your response here
What Do They Know FOI requests to the LGO
February 1st, 2010We 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, 2010Just 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, 2010Jerry White’s replacement, Jane Martin, starts work on the Monday the 11th January 2009.
