Martin Partington: Spotlight on the Justice System

Following a report by Robert Gordon in 2014, the Government announced in its legislative programme for 2015 that it would be published a draft bill, proposing the creation of a single Public Services Ombudsman, which would bring together the current Parliamentary ombudsman, Local Government Ombudsmen and the Health Services Ombudsman. Such a move had been made in Scotland and Wales.

No such bill has been published, nor was the proposal mentioned in the legislative programme for 2016. The Government has stated that the proposal will be brought forward in due course, but there is no indication of any timetable for this.

In the interim, a very interesting House of Commons Briefing Paper on the subject has been published which summarises many of the issues involved.

Rationalisation of the current plethora of Ombudsmen has been something that has been argued for sometime but one gets the impression that for the moment it has been kicked into the long grass and is not high on the Government’s priority list.

The Briefing note is at http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7587