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Localism Bill

My Lords, I, too, support the role of councillors and their engagement in these processes, but I do not think that this is an either/or. My name is against Amendments 69, 71 and 72. If people do not wish to go to the councillor for any reason, surely they should have the opportunity to go directly to the ombudsman service. My interest is that I have been on the receiving end of the ombudsman’s judgment, complaints having been made about organisations that I have chaired and run, and I think the ombudsman service is great. It resolves complaints that have been running sometimes for ages; the filing cabinet is full of going backwards and forwards, the ombudsman sorts it out, the decision is final. It is a professional service. The British and Irish Ombudsman Association thinks that an essential ingredient in any ombudsman service is that the consumer has a right of direct access to that service. I chair the Council of the Property Ombudsman, which looks after the private sector, separate from the arrangements for the Housing Ombudsman in the social housing sector. In the private sector, of course, tenants can go direct to the ombudsman; they do not have to go to a council, an MP or a tenant panel. That system works extremely well. I have watched the process from both sides of the fence. Ombudsman services really work and direct access to them seems an important ingredient. We have one example. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said he did not think that there were any examples of there being a bureaucratic filter of this kind, but I think the Parliamentary Ombudsman is the last outpost of this approach. It applied to the Local Government Ombudsman but was scrapped as it was found to be unworkable and unnecessary, but with the Parliamentary Ombudsman, going through your MP remains. However, Ann Abraham, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, says: "““The MP filter delays the resolution of complaints by the ombudsman and even deters some people from taking their complaints to the ombudsman at all””." I think it likely, as a result of the consultation now going on, that the filter will be dropped in that last case of the Parliamentary Ombudsman. So let us by all means engage councillors and encourage people to go to their councillor—sometimes that can be the best kind of mediation and local way of organising things—but let us allow people, if they wish, to go direct to the ombudsman service. It is there as a professional body and it sorts things out.