LOCAL GOVERNMENT OMBUDSMAN DIRTY TRICKS

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www.ombudsmanwatch.org

 

Jerry White Patricia Thomas Tony Redmond
Jerry White Patricia Thomas Tony Redmond

 

 

 

CAUGHT OUT!


Local Government Ombudsman Investigator tries to infiltrate LGOWatch Forum.
Read more.


SELECT COMMITTEE REPORT PUBLISHED ON THE LGO


The three Local Government Ombudsmen were summoned to appear on 15 March 2005 before the ODPM Select Committee to answer questions on the role and usefulness of the Local Government Ombudsman. The Committee published  its Report on 7 April 2005, and it contains several Memoranda, including one from LGOWatch, that provide devastating evidence of the Ombudsman's bias in favour of councils, incompetence and astonishing unaccountability. 

 

There is even a Supplementary Memorandum in the Report from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, signed by Nick Raynsford MP, challenging the impression that the Local Government Ombudsmen gave in their evidence that the ODPM had not responded fully to the Commission's 2003 review. The Report can be read online here.


The damning submissions are on pages EV16 - 28, and the transcript of the
Evidence Session, where the ombudsmen were questioned, starts on page EV1.

Copies of the Report can be purchased via the following site.

 

 

Local Government Ombudsman Watch - Campaign for a fair council watchdog, to stop local government maladministration, where clearly there is built in bias, in that almost all the staff of the LGO are ex-planning officers!

Local Government Ombudsman Watch believes that citizens have a right to an Independent Local Government Complaints Commission that does not recruit its senior staff from local authorities, as does the current council Ombudsman. A local authority Ombudsman system should also be expected to investigate complaints fairly and impartially, and report that a council is at fault when maladministration is established, rather than disguising the maladministration as a 'local settlement' in its publications. 

 

It must become possible to complain about maladministration when it is committed by a council Ombudsman to an independent tribunal; at present, the citizen is restricted to either complaining to the local authority Ombudsman that the Ombudsman's findings are unjust, or else applying to take the decision to judicial review, which can be a very expensive procedure and is only open to those who are so poor they can get legal aid, or so wealthy that they can afford to lose potentially tens of thousands of pounds. 

 

The prospects of success at judicial review are also very poor: in the financial years 2001-2004, Nick Raynsford MP reports judges to have found in favour of the council Ombudsman in all 25 cases taken to judicial review. Even when an appeal is successful, the judge only has the power to ask the Local Government Ombudsman to take another look at the case. This does not seem like a fair appeal system against a local authority Ombudsman service. 

 

A credible local authority Ombudsman service needs to conduct itself with a degree of honesty, integrity and impartiality that makes it beyond reproach, and be made politically and democratically responsible to the taxpayers who fund it. The present arrangement merely encourages local councils to commit maladministration with impunity, because local authorities know that it is the case that the Local Government Ombudsman is usually very much on their side.

 

THE LOCAL GOVENMENT OMBUDSMAN IS A STOOGE TO COUNCIL'S - HENCE PART OF THE CHAIN OF CORRUPTION.

 

 

Local Government Ombudsman Watch


www.ombudsmanwatch.org

Campaigning for the abolition or radical reform of the Local Government
Ombudsman institution, and for a politically and legally accountable
Independent Local Government Complaints Commission free from systemic
maladministration and pro-council bias.

 

IMPORTANT: LGOWatch campaigns to expose widespread Local
Government Ombudsman injustice to complainants, but
unfortunately does not have the resources to become involved in
individual cases against a council or the Ombudsman. Please read
here what LGOWatch can and cannot do.

 

The Councils' Champion - the Local Government
Ombudsman defending and encouraging local
authority maladministration

Public dissatisfaction disaster: their own MORI
polls condemn the Local Government Ombudsman
service

Hiding maladministration: how the Local
Government Ombudsman disguises cases of
council injustice and bad practice

The 'insignificant injustice' trick: the Local
Government Ombudsmen can make a completely
subjective judgement as to how much suffering is
worth worrying about

Tax funding for injustice: LGOWatch exposes
what citizens pay the Local Government  
Ombudsman to defend local authority bad practice

The judicial review joke: no justice for the poor,
and even bad prospects of justice for the rich
from the Local Government Ombudsman

Human rights: maladministration and injustice
with impunity from the Local Government
Ombudsman

Human misery: the appalling effects of local
authority maladministration and Local
Government Ombudsman bias.

 

 

PETITION TO ABOLISH THE LGO 2007

 

If you'd like to tell your friends about this petition, its permanent web address is: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/lgowatchers/

 

 

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to implement Sir Geoffrey Chipperfield's 1995 recommendations and abolish Local Government Ombudsmen.

 

Submitted by Pauline Nunn – Deadline to sign up by: 10 October 2007 – Signatures: 84

 

Current signatories

 

Pauline Nunn, the Petition Creator, joined by (as of April 2007):

  • Amy Hunter

  • Dr Tony Ashton

  • Paul Davies

  • A Johnson

  • David Sneath

  • Trevor R Nunn

  • Gary Powell

  • Ray Pearson

  • charlotte

  • Rita Grootendorst

  • James Dey

  • Stuart HARDWICKE CARRUTHERS

  • Lawrence Johnston

  • Sean Cassidy

  • Marie Broderick

  • Roger Lawson

  • Ann Jones

  • Christine Dignan

  • Jad Adams

  • Chris Wesley

  • john mckenna

  • Tony Carpenter

  • Victoria Jones

  • John Murphy

  • Howard Jones

  • Peter J Harry

  • Steve Hardcastle

  • Glyn Annell

  • Tracy Morgan

  • martin h dix

  • Carol Woods

  • anita m.jennings

  • Roseanne Kay

  • Thomas Kempster

  • John Bond

  • Paul Abraham

  • Denis Tither

  • Hamilton Brome

  • Dr Keith Tayler

  • James Hinds

  • Trevor Fairminer

  • Patricia Gravell

  • John W. Burley

  • wendy williams

  • Bernard Bowshall

  • Audrey Martin

  • Malcolm Debono

  • Theresa Ezekpo

  • Eric Krieger

  • Caswell Andrew

  • John Lewis

  • Elaine Kempster

  • Clive Mowforth

  • John Gardner

  • Gillian Hinds

  • Frances Hinds

  • david Hinds

  • John McLean

  • Martin Humphrey

  • Peter Turtill

  • Judith Ann Turtill

  • Charles Lacaille

  • Dawn Sinclair

  • Peter Ellis

  • Jane CARRUTHERS

  • Thomas Hale

  • Michael Jenkins

  • Monica Waud

  • Henry Hardwicke Carruthers

  • Alice Hardwicke Carruthers

  • Ronald T Dodson

  • Brian James Cairney

  • John Weston

  • Matilda Hardwicke Carruthers

  • Martin Brighton

  • Stephen Sproson

  • Tony Hider

  • Anita Ashley

  • S.G. O'Gorman

  • Aileen Crosbie

  • JOE STIRLING

  • Jackie Beckett

  • William Robertson

  • Nelson Kruschandl

 

More details from petition creator

 

Sir Geoffrey Chipperfield recommended abolition of the LGO because they were an unnecessary institution whose work could best be carried out by other bodies. His report was subverted by the interference of the then LGO and its allies. Since then the LGO has demonstrably failed to improve the system, and continues to exclude the public interest from their remit. Irrefutable evidence of its dishonesty and bias has been gathered by LGOWatch since 2003. 

 

The LGO is counter-productive to effective management in local government and a blight on the human rights of citizens looking to this publicly funded institution to act in good faith. On the rare occasions when it is found, the intervention of the LGO tends to entrench maladministration rather than put a stop to it. The continuance of this office is not in the public interest.

 

 


 

 

*THAT THE PUBLIC MAY KNOW*