LGO investigations.

Request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

Thank you for your request for information received at this office on 8 January 2008. This has been considered as a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Your request may take up to 20 working days to be processed.

If an exemption applies to the information that you have requested, the statutory period may be exceeded in accordance with the provisions of that Act.

If a charge is applicable to your request, we will advise you of this in due course.

Should you have any queries, please contact me.

_________________________________________________
Carl Wiper
Corporate Information Manager
Bolton Council, Room 320, Town Hall, Bolton BL1 1RU tel: 01204 331031, mobile: 0778 903 1512
[email address]

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Dear Mr Nunn

Further to your request below, Bolton Council is happy to provide the
following information.

You asked:

During the last five years how many times has the Local Government
Ombudsman (as a result of investigating a complaint against Bolton Borough
Council) brought to the attention of the council the fact that a member of
Bolton Borough Council staff had misled them, lied to them or done
anything else to hinder their investigation. If they have what
disciplinary action was taken against the individual(s) concerned by the
council.

We retain case papers in relation to Local Government Ombudsman complaints
for two years, in addition to the current year. We also have the Annual
Letters from the Ombudsman, summarising complaints she has handled, for
the last 10 years. I have examined all the case papers for the years
2006/07, 2007/08 and 2008/09 to date and the Annual Letters for the years
2007/08, 2006/07, 2005/06, 2004/05 and 2003/04.

There are no cases in which the Investigators for the Ombudsman found that
the Council had ‘misled’ or ‘lied’ to them or hindered their
investigation.  For the sake of transparency and openness, I should also
note that in one case in 2007 the Investigator expressed ‘concern and
disappointment‘ that the Council had not fully answered one of their
questions but this did not affect the satisfactory resolution of the
complaint.

I apologise for the delay in providing this response, which was due on 4
February. If you have any further queries please contact me.

_________________________________________________
Carl Wiper

Corporate Information Manager
Bolton Council, Room 320, Town Hall, Bolton BL1 1RU tel: 01204 331031,
mobile: 0778 903 1512

[email address]

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