Jurisdiction
28.1The office of Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) is set up by Part 3 of the Local Government Act 1974 and Schedules 4 and 5 thereto, as amended.
28.2The essential machinery is as follows:
•a complaint may be made by or on behalf of a member of the public (or their personal representative/some other suitable person, if they have died) if they claim to have ‘sustained injustice’ (section 26A);
•complaints can be referred to the LGO by various authorities (section 26C);
•a complaint must be made in writing and within 12 months of the day on which the person affected (or his or her personal representative) first had notice of the matter, although the LGO may extend time (section 26B);
•the LGO will not generally undertake an investigation unless the authority has been afforded a reasonable opportunity to investigate and respond (section 26(5));
•the LGO may or may not investigate a matter where the person has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal and will not do so after such a right has been exercised (section 26(6) and (7));
•provision is made for investigations to be conducted in private, for the LGO to exercise a number of procedural powers and for him or her to issue reports on investigations (sections 28–30, 31B);
•the local authority has an opportunity of deciding what action to take to remedy any injustice, otherwise, the LGO will issue recommendations (section 31).
28.3The critical provisions, relating to matters subject to investigation, are as follows:
Matters subject to investigation.
26(1) For the purposes of section 24A(1)(b), in relation to an authority to which this Part of this Act applies, the following matters are subject to investigation by a Local Commissioner under this Part of this Act–
(a)alleged or apparent maladministration in connection with the exercise of the authority’s administrative functions;
(b)an alleged or apparent failure in a service which it was the authority’s function to provide;
(c)an alleged or apparent failure to provide such a service.
(d)an alleged or apparent failure in a service provided by the authority in pursuance of arrangements under section 7A of the National Health Service Act 2006;
(e)an alleged or apparent failure to provide a service in pursuance of such arrangements.