Prima riunione della nuova Consulta del Centro di tutela contro le discriminazioni

Date of article: 29/11/2024

Daily News of: 02/12/2024

Country:  Italy - Bolzano

Author: Regional Ombudsman of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano

Article language: it

Riunita la Consulta nominata ex novo nella nuova legislatura. Alla presidenza, la responsabile del Centro di tutela Priska Garbin; confermato come vice Bassamba Diaby. Ambiti di discriminazione più frequenti e collaborazione con le associazioni locali i temi trattati.
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Erste Sitzung des neuen Beirates der Antidiskriminierungsstellte

Date of article: 29/11/2024

Daily News of: 02/12/2024

Country:  Italy - Bolzano

Author: Regional Ombudsman of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano

Article language: de

Neu ernannte Mitglieder des Beirates der Antidiskriminierungsstellte treffen sich zu erster Sitzung. Als Stellvertreter der Vorsitzenden Garbin wurde der Vertreter von „Rete dei diritti senza voce“ Diaby bestätigt. Thematisiert wurden Bereiche, in denen Diskriminierung häufig geschieht, sowie Zusammenarbeit mit lokalen Organisationen.
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News from the Ombudsman - November 2024

Date of article: 29/11/2024

Daily News of: 02/12/2024

Country:  United Kingdom - England

Author: Local Government Ombudsmen for England

Article language: en

News from the Ombudsman - November 2024

Welcome...

Welcome to the latest edition of News from the Ombudsman.

In this edition you can read about our:

  • Plans for how we can help improve public services over the next three years
  • Seminars we held with complaints representatives from local authorities
  • Guidance for people who work with adoptive families
  • Updated advice about complaints we can and cannot investigate
  • Chief Executive's retirement announcement

We hope you enjoy reading our newsletter. If you'd like to hear more about the work we do, why not follow us on LinkedIn?

Our Triennial Review published

Child in classroom with adult smiling

We have made four recommendations to Government on how we could improve the public services we oversee in our flagship Triennial Review.

The Review assesses the effectiveness of our service alongside the delivery of services in the local government and social care systems and suggests ways these could be improved.

The four areas where we would like to see improvements are:

  • Services for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
  • Complaints handling within the independent care sector, to include the need for the sector to signpost clients to us at the end of their complaints process
  • Updating our jurisdiction to reflect modern local government systems, including those emerging through the devolution agenda
  • Including a statutory duty to monitor compliance with our new Complaint Handling Code, which will be implemented from April 2026

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Link Officer and Complaint Manager Seminars

We held three seminars for local authorities in October and November to share learning from our investigations and encourage improvements in how they engage with our processes.

Seminars were held in Reading, Birmingham and Newcastle with 178 delegates attending from 112 local authorities. Delegates heard from our Ombudsman, Amerdeep Somal, about significant issues we are seeing in complaints about education, social care and homeless services and were given the opportunity to give feedback on the impact Ombudsman investigations have on local services.

We also spoke to delegates about our Complaint Handling Code and how this could be used to improve complaint handling in local authorities as well as how to use complaints data through local scrutiny arrangements.

Initial feedback about the seminars has been positive with many authorities reporting that they will be able to use the learning to improve working practices.


Guidance for working with adoptive families issued

Grandparents and toddler painting

We have issued guidance to councils to use when working with adoptive families.

Called ‘Children need Families’ the new report is aimed at helping to improve the support English councils provide to people throughout the adoption process, using real complaints we have investigated as examples of where things can and do go wrong.

Although we receive relatively few complaints from adoptive families, every single upheld case reflects a vulnerable child’s fresh start in life being affected by poor service from their council. This can either be in the support provided post-adoption, or the support and information given to potential adoptive parents.

Read our guide


Did you know there are some limits on what we can look at?

Complaint file

We take our powers from the 1974 Local Government Act. This allows us to investigate the actions of local authorities and private care providers as well as some other public bodies.

However, the Act also places some limits on what complaints we can look at. This means that people are sometimes disappointed when raising a complaint with us when they find it is not something we can look at.

We have updated our website to provide more information about the types of complaints we are able to look at as well as those complaints we often receive which we have to decline.

We hope this information will help members of the public make an informed decision about whether their complaint is one we are able to look at. We have also asked local authorities to include a link to this webpage in their responses to complaints so members of the public have this information to hand when they receive the council's response.

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Chief Executive to retire

Nigel Ellis

Our Chief Executive, Nigel Ellis, has announced he will retire in May 2025.

Mr Ellis has been our Chief Executive for eight years, having been Director of Operations prior to that. Before joining LGSCO he was in charge of investigations at the healthcare regulator and held a variety of roles in the voluntary sector.


News you may have missed


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(FRA) Marking international day of people with disabilities

Date of article: 02/12/2024

Daily News of: 02/12/2024

Country:  EUROPE

Author: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

Equality, non-discrimination and racism People with disabilities

When 

Where Vienna, Austria

Organised By UNODC

External event

On 3 December, the Secretariat of Governing Bodies to the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) will host a virtual event to discuss how to fully implement Sustainable Development Goal 16 for people with disabilities.

FRA will contribute to a panel on addressing crimes against people with disabilities. It will focus on hate crimes against people with disabilities. 

The event marks international day of people with disabilities. 

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El Ararteko condena el crimen machista en Pasai Antxo

Date of article: 02/12/2024

Daily News of: 02/12/2024

Country:  Spain - Basque country

Author: Regional Ombudsman of the Basque Country

El Ararteko condena con profundo dolor y consternación el atroz asesinato machista contra Leonor, cuya vida le ha arrebatado su expareja a tiros este viernes en su domicilio de Pasai Antxo. 

Este crimen del machismo nos interpela como sociedad y nos exige a todas las instituciones una seria revisión del caso y de sus circunstancias, para entender por qué, a pesar de las denuncias de Leonor, no se ha podido proteger a esta mujer y evitar que finalmente fuera asesinada por el agresor al que había denunciado años atrás.  

El Ararteko se suma al dolor de los hijos, familiares y amistades de Leonor, que deberán recibir a partir de ahora todo el apoyo que las instituciones puedan brindarles, en especial, para tratar de restaurar en lo posible el daño causado en sus vidas por este crimen.  

Esta institución denuncia públicamente, una vez más, el impacto nefasto que el machismo asesino sigue causando en las vidas de las mujeres, y llama a toda la sociedad vasca y a sus instituciones a comprometerse firmemente en la lucha contra esta lacra estructural y contra la ideología y los valores machistas, como causa última de la violencia que mata. 

El Ararteko continuará trabajando firme e incansablemente en este rumbo, denunciando al machismo en todas sus expresiones y renovando cada día su compromiso con la defensa de los derechos humanos de las mujeres, niñas y niños, y en favor de la igualdad de mujeres y hombres.

Vitoria-Gasteiz, 2 de diciembre de 2024

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