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News from the Ombudsman - June 2024 |
Welcome... Welcome to the latest edition of News from the Ombudsman. In this edition you can read about: - our governing body, the Commission for Local Administration in England
- the next steps for our national complaints handling code
- new FAQs for complaints about emergency services
- our factsheet on complaints about the way an election is run
We hope you enjoy reading our newsletter. If you'd like to hear more about the work we do, why not follow us on X or LinkedIn? | |
Our Commission  Did you know our governing body is called The Commission for Local Administration in England (CLAE)? The Commission has strategic oversight of how we operate – as set out by the local Government Act 1974 Members meet quarterly to look at things such as setting LGSCO's strategic aims and objectives, approving the business plan and reviewing operational performance. The Commission currently has five members: - The 'Local Commissioner' is the Chair of the Commission and the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.
- The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, who is an ex-officio member of the Commission, and
- Three Independent Advisory Members, who also sit on the CLAE's two Committees: Audit and Risk Assurance Committee and Remuneration and Appointments Committee.
| Join the Commission  We are currently recruiting for a new advisory member to join our Commission and be part of its Remuneration and Appointments Committee and its Audit and Risk Assurance Committee. The successful candidate for the three-year term will start as an Independent Advisory Member in October 2024, before taking over as Chair of the Remuneration and Appointments Committee in January 2025. The closing date for applications is 9am on 1 July. | Complaint Handling Code update  In February we launched our Complaint Handling Code, which sets out a single standard for complaint handling in local councils. It also serves as a good practice guide for other organisations we investigate. We will start to consider the Code in our casework from April 2026. This will give local councils time to adopt the Code into existing policies and procedures. We are working with a group of 20 pilot councils to listen to feedback about opportunities and challenges the Code presents. We will use this to develop good practice guides that will support councils and other organisations to adopt the Code. We have held our first meetings with the pilot councils, which focused on what further information we need to provide to support councils, and how councils capture data on complaint handling performance. Future meetings will look at the relationship between complaints and local scrutiny and oversight functions, as well as how to make best use of learning from complaints. | Complaints about emergency services  Most complaints we consider are about councils and care providers. But we can also investigate some other organisations providing public services. We've published new factsheets about fire and rescue authorities and police and crime commissioners. These explain that we can investigate most complaints about fire authorities. These might be about how a fire service has tackled a fire or given fire safety advice. However, we cannot investigate most types of complaint about police and crime commissioners – who are elected to make sure local police services are effective. The law prevents us from looking at issues connected with investigating and preventing crime. It means we can potentially look at some complaints about the commissioner and their staff, but we cannot look at the actions of the police, the way they investigate or prevent crime, or how the commissioners have dealt with complaints about the police. | Elections complaints?  With the national elections looming, you may have some questions about the sort of complaints we may or may not be able to look at should you have any concerns. We have a handy factsheet on our website which offers advice on typical complaints relating to elections, and who you should turn to if you have a complaint. | |
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