English summary of Annual Report 2013 consists of overview of the Chancellor of Justice's activities for the prevention of ill-treatment (OPCAT), as the ombudsman for children, for the promotion of equality and equal treatment and general proceeding statistics.

The Public Defender of Rights has the pleasure to invite you to a conference with international participation „Work-life balance“ held 23rd and 24th October 2014 in the Office of the Public Defender of Rights, Brno.

The competences of the Public Defender of Rights as an equality body include the issue of discrimination and assistance to victims of discrimination. In this respect, the traditional “Ombudsman” role of the Defender, consisting in protecting persons from maladministration, is supplemented with another area of activity. The area of work and employment is one of the most important areas where discrimination is forbidden.

The issue of balancing work and private life is discussed in particular with respect to employment of women with children and their overall position in the labour market. However, other groups of persons are interested in balancing their work and private lives too. In essence, this concerns all groups of people who want to strike a balance between their family life and work. Insufficient measures supporting the balance between work and private life, be they legislative measures or measures taken by the individual employers, may disadvantage members of certain groups of people and thus lead to their discrimination. Those who take care of dependent persons (children, persons with disabilities, the elderly) are especially vulnerable and potentially exposed to discrimination.

In what way could we assist in the adoption of individual measures supporting work-life balance? Are the measures applied in other European countries applicable to the situation in the Czech Republic? Should the government intervene in this area, or should the choice of approach to this issue be left to the employers? How will the adoption of the act on children’s groups affect the situation? What obstacles are preventing the employers from adopting balancing measures? These questions will be discussed at the conference.

The conference is split into two parts. The plenary session takes place on the first day. Prominent Czech and international experts in the area of work-life balance will present their contributions. The plenary session will continue during the first part of the second day of conference. The second part will include workshops on issues of work-life balance in the area of science and research, employer opportunities and practices in introducing balancing measures, and balancing and equal opportunities. A meeting of representatives of selected Ombudsman institutions and anti-discrimination bodies will be held in parallel to discuss equal opportunities and balancing.

Online registration form for the Conference is available at: http://www.ochrance.cz/no_cache/spolecne-k-dobre-sprave/konference-seminare-a-kulate-stoly/ – the deadline for registration is 16 October 2014. The organiser reserves the right to reject participants in case of full conference hall and workshops capacity.

 Programme of the konference (276.1 kB, Adobe Acrobat document).

Participation in the conference is free of charge. Interpreting from Czech/Slovak into English and from English into Czech will be available during the conference.

The conference is organized under the project "Together Towards Good Governance" (reg. number CZ.1.04/5.1.00/81.00007) funded by the European Social Fund through the Human Resources and Employment Operational Programme and the state budget of the Czech Republic. The beneficiary and the project implementer is the Office of the Public Defender of Rights.

Julie Mellor, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman said:

"We sit at the apex of the complaints system and investigate complaints that individuals have been treated unfairly, received poor service where people are not satisfied with the response to a complaint from the NHS in England.

"We support Healthwatch England’s recommendations for replacing the current fragmented support and advocacy system with a more easily accessible system. We believe there should be national standards for complaints advocacy and one brand so that people know where to turn to for support when making a complaint.

"We are pleased that Healthwatch England is supporting the case for a single Public Ombudsman Service to be responsible for all complaints about health and social care in England.

"In addition, so that providers and regulators can measure progress towards what health service users regard as good complaint handling we have worked with Healthwatch England and the Local Government Ombudsman to capture user expectations. These have already been incorporated into the Care Quality Commission’s new approach to inspections."