2 December 2009

Mr S Hardwicke Carruthers

Via email ([FOI #22545 email])

Our ref: CS/09/117/HJP

(Please quote our reference when contacting us)

If telephoning contact Hilary Pook on 020 7217 4734

or if using email send to: [email address]

Dear Mr Hardwicke Carruthers

Request for information

In your email of 4 November, you asked for a copy of the evaluation tools used by the LGO/CLAE to determine/identify the effectiveness of both the office of the Local Commissioner and the CLAE, and a copy of any evaluations conducted over the last 10 years to identify the effectiveness of the institutions.

Additionally, you wanted details of all international and British standards used by the Local Commissioners/CLAE to measure their effectiveness.

First, there are no evaluation tools used in the Commission to determine the effectiveness of the office of Local Commissioner.

Evaluation of the effectiveness of the Commission in the conduct of its statutory services is reported in the annual report - in the chapter than measures performance against the business goals set in the Corporate Plan. Both these documents are available on our website.

Effectiveness of the Commission in the conduct of its statutory services is also measured by the customer satisfaction surveys we commission, and the reports of these are all available on our website.

The Commission does not pursue any national or international standards to measure their effectiveness, other than those embodied in UK law.

/…

That concludes my response. If you feel I have not dealt properly with your request, you have the right to appeal and, should you wish to do so, I can supply a copy our internal complaints procedure. If you do request an internal review - can you please indicate why you are unhappy with my response. You also have the right to apply to the Information Commissioner to determine whether your request has been properly dealt with. You should note however that the Commissioner will not consider any complaint where you have not first exhausted our internal complaints process or where there has been undue delay in contacting him. You will be able to obtain further details of the Information Commissioner's role from the website on www.ico.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely

Hilary Pook

Hilary Pook (Ms)

Communications and Records Manager

LGO 01 (03/08)