.

European Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, notes with disappointment the decision of ECB President Mario Draghi not to suspend his membership of the private, Washington-based ‘Group of 30’ organisation following her recommendation to do so.

“It’s a missed opportunity for increased trust.” Ms. O’Reilly said “I had hoped that at a challenging time for the EU, the ECB might have seized an opportunity to show leadership by not allowing even the slightest perception to emerge that overly close relationships exist between regulators and those they regulate.”

In its response the ECB has again failed to explain why President Draghi’s membership of – as opposed to normal participation in – this group is so important, or what public interest it serves. 

The Ombudsman fully supports participation in appropriate fora in the public interest but ‘membership’ adds an element of privileged inclusivity that is not in k

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has announced its vision for the next three years in its Corporate Strategy.

Available to download from the website, the Strategy sets out the Ombudsman’s priorities for action between now and 2021.

It details the work the Ombudsman will be doing over the next three years to become an ‘exemplary Ombudsman service’, working on the already strong foundations laid in the preceding years.

Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said:

“Over the next three years we are committed to creating even greater openness about the way we work, the processes we follow, the decisions we take, and the recommendations we make.

“We have a clear set of goals that will shape the content of our business that will continue to develop LGSCO as an excellent, 21st Century ombudsman scheme; and which will cement our position as a key pillar of administrative justice in England.”

One of the main areas the Ombudsman will be focusing on is openness and transparency, and over the next three years the service will be sharing even more information about the way it works, the processes followed, the decisions taken, and the recommendations made.

By sharing more information, the Ombudsman hopes to support greater public and democratic scrutiny of services, shifting the focus from complaint volumes to the value it can add for the wider public, through recommendations for wider service improvements and learning from investigations.

Councils cannot charge people for the first six weeks of intermediate care, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has warned, following an investigation into a complaint about North Somerset Council.

The warning comes after a family complained North Somerset Council was not clear about the care home fees they had to pay when a family member left hospital following an amputation.

The council claimed that the care the relative received was not intermediate care, but ‘enablement’ and so charged the family.

Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, Michael King, said:

“Simply referring to intermediate care by another name does not allow the council to charge for it. Intermediate care, where people are receiving support with the intention of returning home, cannot be charged in this initial period.

“I am pleased the council has agreed to apologise to the family and pay them the remedy we have recommended. However, it now needs to identify and repay any others who may have been incorrectly charged for the care they have received.”

The Ombudsman’s investigation found fault with the council for having confusing and conflicting information on its website and in leaflets about its enablement service. As a result of the Ombudsman’s investigation it will be reviewing its enablement offer.

The investigation also criticised the council for the way the care home sent an incorrect invoice to the family for the care received. Where councils commission services from other organisations, they retain overall responsibility for those services.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s role is to remedy injustice and share learning from investigations to help improve public, and adult social care, services.

To remedy the injustice caused to the family, the council has agreed to apologise and pay the man £722.40 for the six weeks of intermediate care fees he should not have paid to the care home.

The council has also agreed to reduce the amount the family rightly owe because of the distress caused by wrongly backdating the full cost of care for the period when he should have received intermediate care.

The Ombudsman has the power to make recommendations to improve a council’s processes for the wider public. In this case the council has agreed to review its adult social care charging policy and procedures to ensure it is compliant with the Care Act, specifically addressing charging for enablement.

The council should now notify staff in the relevant Social Care, Financial Assessment and Benefits Teams of policy and procedural changes; and identify any adults who have received ‘enablement’ care since April 2015, who should have been entitled to free intermediate care.

The Ombudsman has also recommended the council write to those affected, or where necessary a suitable representative, and arrange to refund their costs for the first six weeks of their enablement package. It has not yet agreed to this recommendation.

The total number of complaints delivered in 2017 to the Ombudsman was 8,191. People increasingly turn to the Ombudsman's Office with their problems in the sphere of social security and also number of complaints concerning work and employment increased by 39 percent.

The ombudsman’s office resolved 8,266 complaints, forty of them were from children. In 576 cases an error or discrimination were found – in 528 cases the ombudsman managed to ensure remedy.

The ombudsman dealt with almost 1,500 cases in the sphere of social security. 

"In the past three years, we saw a permanent growth of complaints in this sphere. Last year, there were roughly 100 people filing a complaint more," the ombudsman Anna Šabatová says. The complaints mainly related to the contribution to care, the benefits for handicapped people, sickness insurance and pensions.

Last year, the office also examined over 600 complaints from the sphere of construction and regional development, while another almost 500 complaints were from the sphere of the military, police and prison service.

The ombudsman also visited 22 facilities where people are restricted in their freedom. During the series of visits to facilities for long-term patients, the ombudsman found that they were so understaffed that it was impossible to provide the patients with the required level of individual care, and the patients’ dignity and privacy could therefore be violated. This was also reflected in the use of restraints, insufficient monitoring of pain, nutrition etc.

The ombudsman addressed 5 legislative recommendations to the Chamber of Deputies. Recommendations are based on the most serious problems found in the activities of the ombudsman.

Recommendations to the Chamber of Deputies:

1. Make sure that the current exemption from real estate acquisition tax also includes residential units in residential houses.
2. Abolish the duty of Czech citizens or foreigners to submit registry documents issued by the Special Registry in official contact.
3. Cancel the precondition of sterilisation for administrative sex change.
4. Modify the administrative procedure on reimbursement of certain healthcare services for insured persons. The current situation is not in line with the insured persons’ interest in access to healthcare.
5. Ensure that any violation of dignity, privacy, safety and integrity in the provision of social services constitutes an infraction.