Governance

The Commission for Local Administration is the official title of the body that runs the Local Government Ombudsman service. It is an independent body funded by government grant. The members of the Commission are the three Ombudsmen together with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (the Parliamentary Ombudsman). The functions of the Commission include:

• Defining the areas of the Ombudsmen.
• Providing the Ombudsmen with the staff, accommodation, IT and other support they need to enable them to conduct their investigations.
• Producing annual financial estimates, the annual accounts and the annual Business Plan and managing the finances and assets of the Ombudsman service.
• Conducting a triennial review of the Part III of the Local Government Act 1974.
• Giving advice on good administrative practice.

The funding arrangements are detailed in the Grant Memorandum

The Commission meets about every eight weeks, depending on business. In addition to discharging their statutory responsibilities, the Ombudsmen use Commission meetings, for example, to try to achieve consistency in the way they conduct investigations, the way they decide whether there has or has not been maladministration or service failure and in the way they recommend remedies for injustice. The Ombudsmen attach great importance to trying to ensure that a complainant or a local authority, wherever in the country, receives the same treatment from the Ombudsman service. So, for example, they set performance targets for various aspects of their work.

Click on the links below to see agenda, open papers (click on the links within each page) and minutes of the Commission meetings in 2007, 2008 and of meetings held so far in 2009; and on link to the minutes of the meetings in 2006.

• Meetings of the Commission in 2009
• Meetings of the Commission in 2008
• Meetings of the Commission in 2007
• Minutes of Commission meetings in 2006

Date Updated: 20/08/09