New reflections: one month in post as Ombudsman  Paul Najsarek became the interim Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman at the beginning of April. He has brought a wealth of local government and social care experience to the role, having been Chief Executive at a number of councils and a Director of Adult Social Services. Paul has led at national and regional level, such as for Solace (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives) on health and social care including its COVID-19 response, regeneration for the West London Alliance, and adult services for London councils encompassing the capital's adult social care response to the pandemic. Paul's first weeks in post have focused on getting to know the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) and our remit, meeting colleagues and the organisations LGSCO works with at a national level, including Government departments and regulators. Paul reflected on his first weeks, saying: "It is a great privilege to take up the role of Ombudsman and I look forward to helping the organisation amplify its impact and support improvement in council services. "I am impressed at the effectiveness and efficiency of the LGSCO and its commitment to the values of public service, which I hold close to my own heart. The work carried out is of high quality and robust, which is a testament to those who work here and to the former Ombudsman, Mick King, who clearly did an outstanding job during his many years at the organisation. "Fair access to services for all is a real focus for me, as is equality and diversity and I am pleased to see how seriously LGSCO takes those issues and strives for continuous improvement for itself and in others. I'll be seeking to continue that work and to focus on our impact, and I hope that the networks that I have built up in 30 years in local government and social care will help with that." | Shocking complaint response from Leicester care provider  A care provider who threatened a vulnerable elderly woman with bailiffs because she complained about the care her husband received, has demonstrated just how not to respond to a complaint and Ombudsman investigation. Instead of responding to the family's concerns by investigating and replying appropriately, the provider sent the family rude, aggressive and accusatory messages, and threatened them with bailiffs if they did not pay up. We asked the provider to apologise for its actions and to pay the family a symbolic amount for the distress caused. The provider refused to do so, so we have issued a rare Adverse Findings Notice against the company. | On 3 April four new unitary authorities were created in England replacing three county councils and 17 district councils. If you have a complaint about one of the former authorities in Yorkshire, Somerset and Cumbria, we will hold the newly created authorities responsible for the actions of those they have replaced, so we'll continue to consider and deal with complaints about councils which have recently stopped operating. We have been in touch with all the new authorities to ensure there is no disruption to complaint handling in those areas. The new councils are as follows and the names of the councils they are replacing are listed below them: North Yorkshire Council: - North Yorkshire County Council
- Craven District Council
- Hambleton District Council
- Harrogate Borough Council
- Richmondshire District Council
- Ryedale District Council
- Selby District Council
- Scarborough Borough Council
Somerset Council: - Somerset County Council
- South Somerset District Council
- Sedgemoor District Council
- Mendip District Council
- Somerset West and Taunton Council
Cumberland Council - Cumbria County Council
- Allerdale Borough Council
- Carlisle City Council
- Copeland Borough Council
Westmoreland and Furness Council - Cumbria County Council
- Barrow Borough Council
- South Lakeland District Council
- Eden District Council
Annual letters and combined authorities Every year we write to local authorities within our jurisdiction detailing the complaints we have investigated about them and their outcomes. We have started to prepare our summary of complaint statistics for each local authority for 2022-23 and will write to the Chief Executives in late July setting out details of our findings over the past year. For the first time we will also be writing to Chief Executives or their equivalents in Combined Authorities too. We have already written to local authority Chief Executives to let them know that this will be happening. A Human Rights Ombudsman  We gave both written and oral evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights' inquiry into the possible creation of a dedicated Human Rights Ombudsperson. This is a good example of how our evidence and insight can lead to direct influencing of parliamentary or government reports. The Committee's report of that inquiry has recently been published and sets out a series of recommendations that chime with the evidence we gave. It doesn't recommend that a new Ombudsman should be created, but does suggest there should be better promotion of our powers to investigate human rights issues within public service provision and more communication between us and other bodies. It also recommends: - The Government should consider amending the statutes which set out our mandate and that of Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) to make it clear we can consider human rights when determining whether there has been maladministration
- The Government should empower us and PHSO to start investigations where we think there may be systemic breaches of human rights
| | 
No comments:
Post a Comment