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| A message to Local Government Ombudsmanwatch from Councillor Dr John Illingworth (Leeds West), (reproduced with kind permission): More power to your elbow! I have been a local councillor for 25 years, and in that time I have encountered numerous examples of muddle, inefficiency and delay from the Local Government Ombudsman service. I have been repeatedly amazed by their perverse logic and inability to grasp obvious facts that are immediately apparent to a disinterested observer. In fact I have never see them handle a case well, whether or not the Council was actually at fault. I am appalled by the lack of any effective complaints procedure against the Ombudsman, and the lack of an appeal mechanism against Ombudsman decisions. In my view the entire Ombudsman service should be discontinued, and replaced by affordable legal remedies, with proper procedures and rules of evidence, that ordinary members of the public could use. At present the civil courts are only accessible to those who are either destitute or stinking rich. Ordinary citizens are frozen out by the costs system. Best wishes John Illingworth |