|
From |
To |
Date |
Introduction to the letter |
| P Jinman |
Tony Redmond, LGO (London) |
5/12/09 |
As you have failed to answer my concerns about Doug Thorpe’s decision not to investigate the complaint I made about Braintree District Council who have broken many promises and intentions following a two month battle with them last year. When they introduced clamping in Driberg Way without warning or making any arrangements for the vehicles, apparently they did not know that this clamping would cause dangerous traffic conditions. As your department is aware we had to get all sorts of people involved before BDC lifted the dangerous situation they created which caused many accidents in Skitts Hill and considerable inconvenience to residents and children in Brise Close......read more here |
| pmailkeey |
Us about the LGO (York) |
Nov 09 |
pmailkeey v Birmingham City Council. 1. I was in receipt of Council Tax Benefit. 2. For some reason it stopped. 3. I battled with the Council yet it ended up in the Birmingham City Council's 'Magistrates' Court) (as opposed to the proper Magistrates' Court. 4. I was ordered to pay alleged outstanding Council Tax - which I did. 5. Upon paying it, I was asked 'Why had I paid it' - as admitting guilt. 6. I contacted the LGO (Pat Thomas, Yorkshire). 7. LGO backed up the council (there's a surprise). 8. I threatened Birmingham City Council (BCC) with action in the High Court. 9. Miraculously, BCC sorted themselves out, refunded my money and gave me £250 as an ex-gratia peace offering. 10. Are you ready for this :).......read more here |
| J Murray |
Us (ACIS, WLDC and the LGO) |
10/09 |
I can report that in in July
2009 I was again hauled in front of a court by the discredited ACIS
Group falsely accused as predicted of breach of impossible
'undertaking'. I was again obliged to sign further 'undertakings'
in the sure knowledge that it would not be long before ACIS again would
falsely accuse me and apply for my imprisonment. True to form
they have now sent me a solicitor's letter accusing me of further
breach ....read more here |
| Mr X |
Neil Hobbs, Assistant Ombudsman, York LGO office | 09/09 |
Dear Sir, I have just received your letter, which, regardless of what you say, is a whitewash. You have no reports from the Council, therefore, you cannot have investigated my complaint. It clearly states that the L.G.O must investigate complaints against council employees. Surely, breaking the law of the land continuously, is a criminal offence and as such is a maladministration....read more here |
| NL | Us about the LGO | Aug 09 | I would like people to know of my experience of the way the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) seems to go out of its way to support the local authority and not give an impartial and just response to complaints. My initial complaint was against Trading Standards Gloucestershire regarding a back garden fence I had erected in 2008. It was soundly constructed but did not match the neighbour's fences as originally verbally agreed with the trader.....read more here |
| Dr D Hill | Anne Seex, LGO, York | July 09 | Although I have never met Anne Seex or directly communicated with her, I have with her Inspector John McCullough. Based on this experience I can say with some certainty that Anne Seex is certainly not fit for purpose, as at the end of the LGO's involvement with a case against Kirklees Council, nothing happened at all for the residents of Coombe Road, Huddersfield, HD3 4SF. Indeed, this is even after Mr. McCullough put on record to the Council that he never wished his car to turn around ever again in Coombe Road and gave intimation that Kirklees Council should do something about the dire state of the situation ....read more here |
| J Murray | Us (ACIS, WLDC and the LGO) | Jan 09
|
An Account of my Anti Social Behaviour trial By James Murray, who is currently being threatened with imprisonment by ACIS for insisting on his right to the quiet enjoyment of his home.....I am a 75 year old ex-service pensioner with a lifetime's unblemished service - civil, diplomatic and military - to this country. I have lived in Tealby, Lincolnshire, for the last three decades. I moved about ten years ago from a 19th century cottage to an ex-council house on which I lavished a fortune. I moved to be near my friends of more than 30 years - the husband is blind and formerly lectured in a Northern university before retiring here. I support him and his wife where I can....read more here |
| J Murray | Anne Seex, LGO, York | 18/12/08 | Reference is made to the shocking , but not unexpected decision, of the Investigator and Assistant Ombudsman letter dated 15th December 2008 supporting West Lindsey District Council (WLDC). At least 8 telephone calls have failed to reach the Assistant Ombudsman whose letter dated 15 December is deeply offensive. Given that the inevitable whitewash of would fall into the category of the many cases where your bias has meant whitewash for councils, [ 2% in favour of complainants 98% in favour of councils]. The Assistant Ombudsman has added insult to in jury by stating that 'I accepted at least some responsibility in a court of law for unacceptable behaviour'. This is untrue.....read more here |
| Michael Mac | Xmas message to the LGO | Dec 08 | The way you have conducted the investigation since April 2006 (I put my complaint in in mid February 06) I find a disgrace. The way the first investigator disappeared after about September 2006 and I was not even notified until December 2006 (over 2 months later) is a disgrace and shows utter incompetence and contempt for the complainant. Strange how this man disappeared after he had come up with a decision that said I had no complaint against Lambeth. After this when I provided a letter from my dentist that contradicted the lies of these housing officers he then disappeared and stopped working on my case! WHAT A DISGRACE!...read more here |
| S De Castro | Us (LGO) | 15/12/08 | I am completely shocked at the bias and total lack of even basic fairness shown by the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO). I made complaints to the council which they arbitrarily decided not to put through their complaints procedure. I then made a complaint to the council chief executive which was luckily put through the complaints procedure BUT arbitrarily the council decided To just chuck it in the bin (close it) at stage 3 without even bothering with an answer. Mr. John Baker of the LGO said that this is fair because I could always appeal to him, fundamentally saying that councils can do whatever they like with complaints and disregard any procedure they like and it is fair because we can appeal to the LGO..... what absurd nonsense....read more here |
| Paul Davis | Ann Abraham (PHSO) | 29/9/08 | I hope you won't mind my taking the cue from your advocacy of humane professionalism by addressing you in this familiar fashion. As you rightly say, "The tendency of all bureaucracy is ... towards dehumanisation, towards the mindless routinisation of tasks, so that their original purpose becomes obscure even to those who are charged with performing them." This quotation is taken from your recent speech given on 17th June 2008 to the Constitution Unit Public Seminar and Lecture. There is no-one in the ranks of LGOWatch (an online forum devoted to critical scrutiny of the operations of the UK Ombudsmen) who would raise a question over the title of your lecture: "Good administration: why we need it more than ever."....read more here |
| Martin | Us (LGO) | 11/8/08 | Have you ever wondered why your maladministration cases fail for no apparent reason? Have you only discovered, after the fact, that a network was operating that ensured the LGO would never find in your favour - or that a network unknown to you was the only explanation for otherwise irrational and perverse decisions from the LGO? How might the LGO fit into a larger pattern, ensuring that, apart from isolated cases that have no massive consequences, no case of maladministration will ever be allowed to alter the status quo or change a government pre-set agenda? The following paragraphs are a compilation from what I have had published in various media outlets. They are not definitive, and only offered here to provoke thought and debate....read more here |
| AW Tanner | Prime Minister | 3/7/08 | We have written to the Minister for Justice revealing to him, to no effect, how corrupt acts against us by the Revenue/VOA, had been manoeuvred out of the way by the time we attended Tribunal proceedings. Such fraudulent cases against the electorate deserve to be heard in 'open courts' divorced from public sector chicanery. Cancerous complaint procedures run by civil servants and quangos are killing off our freedoms. No one acknowledges this particular public sector corruption! We seem to be calling for probity amongst wholesale deceit!....read more here |
| Trevor Nunn | Anne Seex LGO, York | 1/7/08 | On the 8th July I will be sixty years old. Unbelievably I started my fight for justice in June 1997 when I was 48 years old. No right minded person would have expected my case to remain unresolved after this many years. Is it really too much to expect the LGO's office to make a final determination on a complaint I first raised in 2002. Especially since this was as a consequence of the council's ongoing failure to provide the remedy promised to the LGO in January 1999 as a result of my 1997 complaint....read it here |
| Mrs J Reeve | Jerry White, LGO Coventry | 21/6/08 | I have not just been let down once, but twice by the Ombudsman. Any objection or further letters to the Ombudsman have been ignored. How can this possibly be fair and unbiased? How can the same ombudsman judge complicated planning affairs and education problems from Coventry without any proper investigations? My first objection was to South Norfolk Planners about being overlooked if a planning application was approved. No one came to see and no one listened. The ombudsman made his decision from the false information given to him by the planners. I asked the Ombudsman to investigate and to use planning experts. He did neither....read more here |
| Mr John Green | Us (Wrexham Council) | 19/6/08 | My parents have been verbally attacked by a member of Wrexham Borough Council simply because they burnt a very small amount of paper in their back garden. They own their own home. To terrorise a man and woman in their 80's over a small amount of burning paper is utterly obscene! My father has a bad heart and is recovering from cancer for God sake. What sort of cowards are working at Wrexham Borough Council? What gives them the right to march on to land and threaten elderly, sick people? ....read more here |
| Mr H | Us ( LGO, Coventry office) | 12/6/08 | Over 18 months investigation and 3 different (ex council) employed investigators - Myself and my family are recent victims of The local government ombudsman's office or the sftpoc-society for the protection of the councils. The Coventry office is now a member of the British magic circle for their unsurpassed expertise at making maladministration disappear! Our case against Tamworth Borough Council was solid and irrefutable, our evidence of maladministration was equal to stating that the earth is round and night follows day-but with smooth well practiced ease this office thru their (ex council) investigators didn't blink....read more here |
| R Ellis | Us (LGO, York office) | 28/5/08 | In the light of recent events in Birmingham it would be interesting under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to see just how many complaints about Birmingham Social Services have been made to the Ombudsman's Office in the past several years; and more importantly how many of those complaints Mrs Seex's office has upheld. My guess based on personal experience is for the first question. Many. For the second question. Less than one....read it here |
| AW Tanner | Ministry of Justice | 21/5/08 | We have for some 5 years been dealing with fraudulence, corruption and much incompetence from the pubic sector. This has included suffering the 'hanging out to dry' routine. We last wrote to you personally on the 14th May 2008. You replied; Thank you for your letter 5/04/2008 (5th APRIL 2008 (?)) it was received here on the 02/08/2008 (2n AUGUST 2008, that's in 3 months time?). We have no record of sending you a letter-dated 5/04/2008; maybe you could furnish us with a copy? Are we into time-wasting public sector gobbledegook? You were in fact replying to my letter 14th May 2008, yet your reply was dated 13th May 2008? Had you been celebrating? An office party maybe?....read more here |
| Stephen Wynn | Us (Financial Ombudsman) | 11/5/08 | Almost all (from the public) submissions to the Hunt Review of the Financial Ombudsman Service have not been published. I have discussed this on comparativetables.com which was prompted by the discussion on the forum. I have written to my MP about this. If the submissions remain unavailable, in my opinion there should be a campaign to gather them together. They should then be put on a website....read more here |
| Corrine | Us (LGO, York/Coventry) |
6/5/08 |
The LGO York office in 2003 found in favour of Manchester City Council, one of whose officials namely [D], arranged for the Police to force entry into my home by informing the officer that "she knew I had a history of collapsing" to gain his concern and enter my bungalow. My Doctor's report states I do not have a history of collapsing. As the LGO found in favour of MCC, a pattern of intimidation and harassments developed and each time I contacted the LGO I was repeatedly told that the case had been dealt with and I was producing no new evidence (even though I was). ....read more here |
| AW Tanner | The Prime Minister |
3/5/08 |
I have recently written to the Ministry of Justice claiming that members of the electorate who have a case against a government department deserve to have their cases heard in 'open courts' - thereby escaping the appalling behaviour by public servants within the fraudulent complaint procedures. Where having been abused by public sector staff, complainants can be further abused by the ensuing cover-up culture. This is a 'systematic problem' only curable by honest parliamentary action. Self-regulation by governmental complaints procedures do not work, they are in too many cases, fraudulent. It is becoming obvious, because of ever increasing bad publicity, that public sector 'self-regulation' has become a No, No amongst an ever sceptical public....read more here |
| Paul | Us (about Welsh PSO) | 30/4/08 | The bizarre lengths the LGO will go to in turning down valid complaints is well known. What isn't so well known is the bizarre consequences of LGO supporting valid complaints and finding maladministration. Take the case of the Anglesey motor racing track within the designated AONB. Here maladministration was coolly and expertly exposed - a local council planning decision was clearly identified as being in breach of statutory duty, but the net result of the report was that (apart from one complainant receiving token financial compensation) the maladministration of the flawed planning decision was allowed to stand. An illegal motor racing track was then further set in concrete with the aid of huge EEC grant money....read more here |
| R Ellis | Anne Seex, LGO, York | 28/4/08 | In the film Guys and Dolls there is a character, Big Jules who proudly boasts that he has a record of 'Twenty arrests. No convictions!' A little bird tells me that Jules had nothing on Sefton Council. The little bird chirps that in the two years up to the 31 /3/2005 Sefton were reported to the Ombudsman about 14 times (that roughly one every three and a half working days) and came out smelling of roses. Indeed they were so delighted with the Ombudsman's performance that they paid Ms.Thomas a fulsome tribute on her retirement. There do not appear to be any tributes from the 140 complainants....read more here |
| AW Tanner | The Prime Minister | 18/4/08 | We have recently written (24 March 2008) to the Ministry of Justice Rt. Hon. Jack Straw re our concerns that our Decision Notice No FS 500082420 should be investigated by a higher authority along with the recent Tribunal verdict. We have had no answer - hence our letter to your office. We claim that where a member of the electorate having a complaint against a government dept like the Inland Revenue, the complainant has a serious chance of becoming entrapped by the fraudulent public sector complaints procedures, where the original fraudulent acts, as in our case, are swept away purposely lost by the regime. I was due to face 2 barristers and 2 lawyers in the Tribunal; my crime, I was corruptly handled by Revenue/VOA....read more here |
| R Ellis | Anne Seex, LGO, York | 31/3/08 | The public perception of the whole raison d'être of the Ombudsman's Office is that it is to protect the public against the excesses practiced by public servants who misuse or abuse their powers. Your Mrs. [Investigator] appears to believe the exact opposite. I was not surprised by Mrs. [Investigator]'s refusal to investigate my complaints about Sefton Council (letter dated 17/03/2008). From my very first contact with her attitude has been to act as defender and advocate on their behalf. I give some examples. (1) In her letter dated 18/02/2008 she quotes the Council as claiming that I refused to go the stage two of their Complaints procedure. It her confidant at the Council did indeed make such a claim than they were lying. I have made no such refusal....read more here |
| Keith Edmunds | Jerry White, LGO, Coventry | 13/3/08 | I have in my possession the covering letter to the 'Draft Key Facts letter' from the Assistant Ombudsman to Portsmouth City Council (06/B/02324/VJ/BM/mw dated 22 August 2007), where in the penultimate paragraph, she asks the Council to provide a 'local settlement even at this late stage.' She makes further reference 'would you like us to email you a copy of our press release on the final report?' Why would the Assistant Ombudsman be asking the Chief Executive, Portsmouth City Council for a 'local settlement' if no 'maladministration with injustice' had been found? Press releases on final reports are only issued in cases of maladministration!....read more here |
| AW Tanner | PHSO (about their survey team) | 6/9/06 | Further to our letter 4th October 2006 regarding your self-appointed severely aggressive contrived survey agency. We point out that after making it clear to you we wanted no part in your face saving survey, you nevertheless turned this Westminster inspired aggressive survey agency upon us. We mentioned how they undemocratically pursued us to answer questions, That we wanted no part in the sham, and would not touch your 'survey' with a bargepole. I need to recap as to what happened on the 2nd and 3rd of October so that we can move nicely into their forceful intervention upon our privacy on 4th October....read more here |
| Trevor Nunn | The Times | 28/04/05 | Mr Redmond tries to suggest that we are becoming a nation of complainers. The truth is that the LGO has failed, and continues to fail, to reduce local authority maladministration. It is on the increase because local authorities know they can carry out appalling acts of maladministration with very little chance of being called to account by the LGO....One final question for Mr Redmond in response to his ridiculous analogy with the “A” team. What role does he think he is playing, “Howling mad Murdoch”, the lunatic or “Face”, the scam artist?....read more here |
| L D Johnston | LGO for Wales | 16/5/02 | Once again you give an ex cathedra decision with no consideration of the substantive issues involved. Whether or not my complaint is related to my initial submission is quite immaterial; in fact, if anything it adds to the evidence of misadministration throughout this messy affair. I have been aware for some time that the Commissioner finally took someone seriously and looked into a matter quite similar to the one I raised. Indeed he asked one member of the Planning Committee how a decision could possibly have been made without a site visit. You may recall that was a major point in my initial complaint. My request was never properly considered, as a result of favouritism, incompetence, and crookedness....read more here |