Local Government Ombudsman Watch
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A message to Local Government Ombudsman Watch
from Councillor Dr John Illingworth (Leeds West), (reproduced with 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