ACCOUNTABILITY TO WHO?

Dear Sir or Madam,

Who oversees that a local authority is operating ethically and honestly ,as it appears the Ombudsman and Ministries do not address fairly referring back with Councillors doing as directed by the corporate on remits and procedures ?Should not they be accountable to us ?

In a democratic country should this be happening where anyone who questions or raises issues is treated as the enemy.

Why then is this day and age , are not 2/3 councillors not on remits or procedures , on shift there , to permanently oversee and be contactable and address there is discretion ??!! Houses of Parliament and every Ministry Commission and public and private body could also do the same .Then one's life iwould not be sitting endlessly on no - help lines that are a waste of time as nothing of substance exists.

Yours faithfully,

Julie Shrive

Foi Officer, The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman

1 Attachment

Dear Ms Shrive

Thank you for your enquiry email (below). I attach our letter of reply.

Yours sincerely

Rob Rundle

Publicity & Information Assistant

Local Government Ombudsman
Website: [1]www.lgo.org.uk

NOTICE - This message contains information intended only for the use of
the addressee named above. If you have received this message in error
please advise us at once and do not make any use of the information.

show quoted sections

Dear Foi Officer,

09 June 2009

Ms Julie Shrive

by email to Julie Shrive [[email address]]

Our ref: RR

Dear Ms Shrive

Your email of 5 June 2009

I acknowledge receipt of your email of 05 June 2009, addressed to our Freedom of Information Officer.

You have not asked for any information concerning the Local Government Ombudsman service, and I have therefore not treated your email as a Freedom of Information request.

It appears that you are already aware that the Local Government Ombudsmen have no regulatory or oversight role in connection with local authorities. Their role is purely to investigate individual complaints.

So I suggest that the appropriate body to make your queries and representations to is the Department for Communities and Local Government, as that is the Government department that covers these matters.

Their contact details are:

website: www.communities.gov.uk/corporate/

email for Local Government policy enquiries: [email address]

and other policy enquiry email addresses may be found on:

www.communities.gov.uk/corporate/about/w...

Postal address: Communities and Local Government, Eland House, Bressenden Place,
London SW1E 5DU

Yours sincerely

Rob Rundle

Publicity and Information Assistant

Passing on as usual

NB Why then have you allowed them to maladministrate my official complaint of DISCRIMINATION 2001 - many areas of council including malicious actions of Welfare Rights Officer who had never met me giving false evidence to DLA APPEAL when on BA with DSA .
Why did you comply with them registering me as mentally disabled illegally when its physical, to protect his back and their funding ?Then ignore further Official Complaints using data protection to have a procedure from Complaints Dept they then neglected with no access to Councillors. . Democratic?
So request Internal Review with Communitie & PM .

Yours sincerely,

Julie Shrive

Foi Officer, The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman

Dear Ms Shrive

In response to your message below, you ask for an internal review of Mr Rundle's response to your original request. Mr Rundle did point out that your request was not for information held by the Local Government Ombudsman, and was not a Freedom of Information request. So there is nothing to review.

If you have a problem with the way your complaint against your council was handled, you need to contact the investigator who dealt with your complaint. We do have a complaints procedure for handling such situations, but you need to make your concerns known within three months of receiving our decision on your complaint about the council. Again, this is not a Freedom of Information matter.

Yours sincerely

Hilary Pook
Communications & Records Manager
Local Government Ombudsman's Office
Tel: 020 7217 4734
www.lgo.org.uk

NOTICE - This message contains information intended only for the use of the addressee named above. If you have received this message in error please advise us at once and do not make any use of the information.

show quoted sections

Dear Foi Officer,
Is this important or not ? Obviousdly not if corrupt ??!! Do you regard process to take precedence over serious issues more important , so need an oral meeting with a named person to sort out at root. Not a quick fix??!!

AGAIN
Who oversees that a local authority is operating ethically and
honestly ,as it appears the Ombudsman and Ministries do not address
fairly referring back with Councillors doing as directed by the
corporate on remits and procedures ?Should not they be accountable
to us ?

Yours sincerely,

Julie Shrive

Stuart Hardwicke CARRUTHERS left an annotation ()

The LGO determines if a Council has committed maladministration. The LGO has discretion to determine what this might be.

The monitoring officer of a Council is responsible for ensuring that it operates according to law. You will find the relevant sections in the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 s5

Most problems with Council's flow from failures of council Monitoring officers to produce a report.