Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed has backed plans to extend the Local Government Ombudsman's remit to include Town and Parish Councils.
She had submitted a written parliamentary question to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) asking when his Department planned to publish the results of its consultation on extending the remit of the Local Government Ombudsman to include larger parish and town councils. She was advised that DCLG are currently considering the responses which they had received from parish and town councils, district councils, local government representative bodies and members of the public and that they are doing this in the context of the government's intention, as announced in the Queen’s speech, to publish a draft Bill creating a single Public Service Ombudsman.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan said; "I fully support these plans and will be pushing for a Single Service Ombudsman. It is very clear to me, having spoken to many people about problems within Town and Parish Councils in my constituency and elsewhere, that there is an urgent need to extend the Ombudsman role and create a means of external intervention when things go wrong".