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It is recognized worldwide that an ombudsman system makes the public administration more transparent and accountable to the public. This paper aims to examine the provisions of the Ombudsman Act 1980, as well as the position, role and necessity of the Office of the Ombudsman in Bangladesh. It also evaluates how the ombudsman institution can act as a gateway for citizens of Bangladesh to resolve complaints against the maladministration of public administration in the country.

The study is basically qualitative in nature where both primary and secondary sources have been used. As well, a combination of analytical methods and current legislative methods, together with future legislative techniques, was used in the study.

This study finds that the ombudsman is a vital institution for Bangladesh to eliminate maladministration, nepotism and abuse of human rights, as well as abuse of the power of the public administration. Going forward, Bangladesh needs to amend the existing Ombudsman Act 1980 and then take proper steps to firmly establish the Ombudsman Office to ensure and increase public confidence, operational effectiveness and good governance and human rights throughout the country.

The main implication of this study is that it will play an important role for the development of the rule of law and human rights in Bangladesh. This study will make its readers and particularly the citizens of Bangladesh aware of the importance of the “Office of the Ombudsman” in Bangladesh and the existing loopholes in the current Ombudsman Act 1980. This research also provides a new avenue for scholars to contribute their knowledge and wisdom toward nation-building by further researching the Office of the Ombudsman in Bangladesh. In this way, scholars in this field can share their experiences of the role of the ombudsman to a wider audience.

The study will facilitate policymakers and the government to enact an effective new law or to amend the existing law relating to the ombudsman.

The paper sets out the proposed amendment to the Ombudsman Act 1980. Hence, it will be of interest to policymakers, government, organizations of civil society and those developing countries that have not taken steps toward forming an ombudsman institution.

Britain's nine ombudsmen provide an informal and inexpensive mechanism for resolving disputes and grievances that arise between individual members of the public and organisations participating in the ombudsmen's schemes. They have been criticised, however, for being at times slow, limited, and ineffective. An ombudsman is defined as an adjudicator who is independent of the organisations he supervises and who is entitled to award compensation to complainants. In this paper, the scope of each scheme, and its strengths and weaknesses, are individually surveyed. Awareness and use of the ombudsmen among members of the public is very low, but whether they would be able to cope with an increased demand for their services without structural change is doubted.

The Department of Health plans to reform the NHS and social care complaints arrangements from April 2009. This article looks at the proposals and considers some of the key issues.

This paper examines the role of regulators and ombudsmen in dealing with complaints in the light of the requirement of Britain's ‘Citizen's Charter’. It considers in particular the arrangements for ensuring that potential complainants know of the systems available and the way to put them into operation. Both public and private sector ombudsmen are reviewed and comparison is made with systems overseas. It is argued that in the light of those comparisons the British complaints industry could go much further to reach out to citizens and customers seeking redress.

This paper aims to analyse the extent to which recent changes in the law, most notably the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 and proposals for changes in tenant redress, will help tenants living in the private rented sector (PRS) with issues of disrepair and poor living conditions.

It applies theoretical scholarship on procedural justice, to two proposals for reform, namely, compulsory membership of redress schemes and a new housing court or use of the first-Tier Tribunal for claims relating to disrepair.

The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 will not provide decent private rented homes without increased security of tenure and a requirement for inspection prior to letting. Tenants should have the right to a fit home at the time of moving in and a cheap and relatively fast method of redress when things go wrong. A combination of compulsory licencing, membership of an ombudsman scheme and either the transfer of disrepair cases to the first-tier tribunal or a new housing court would provide the best overall solution for tenants with regard to repair and condition.

This study contributes to the important scholarship on procedural justice and applies it to ongoing current debates regarding disrepair in the PRS.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the practical implications for integrated care of the UK public sector Ombudsmen's maladministration findings over recent years.

This is a review of reported UK public sector Ombudsmen decisions.

Through their published findings of maladministration, the UK public sector Ombudsmen have made an important contribution to the promotion of good practice in integrated care.

This paper identifies themes relevant to integrated care within Ombudsmen decisions in recent years.

Recently, the British Standards Institution (BSI) issued a new standard: BS 8600:1999 Complaints Management Systems – Guide to Design and Implementation. This standard tends to focus on those systems and procedures that organisations put into motion after a complaint has been received. However, for many customers, particularly of large organisations such as local government services, the problems begin with knowing how to gain access to the complaints system. In the public sector this visibility usually takes the form of some kind of information leaflet which should detail certain basic information that will allow customers to access the complaints system. This paper develops a framework for an effective customer complaints information leaflet and then evaluates Scottish councils’ corporate complaints information brochures against this framework to determine whether or not they meet its acceptance criteria for effectiveness. Each leaflet was evaluated against 12 points of good practice developed from both Central Government’s guidelines and the new British Standard guidelines. The results showed that although a majority of them met many of the framework criteria, a significant proportion fell well short of what would be deemed acceptable.

The Bill provides for five different ombudsman schemes and three other complaint handling schemes into a single unified scheme. All the existing schemes have different legal derivations and industry coverage; defining the scope, functions and funding of the new scheme will be a considerable challenge. This paper analyses the FSA proposals and highlights some of the critical legal and policy issues to be resolved.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse in detail the findings from 40 serious case reviews (SCRs) involving adults who self-neglect, and to consider the commissioning and reporting of such inquiries in the context of accountability that also involves the Coroner and the Local Government Ombudsman.

This study comprised a cross-case analysis of 32 SCRs, using a four-layer design of the adult and their living context, the team around the adult, the organisations around the team, and the Local Safeguarding Board around the organisations.

Available reports tend towards description of events rather than appraisal of what influenced practice. They highlight the challenges in cases of self-neglect practice, including person-centred approaches, capacity assessment and securing engagement. Familiar themes emerge when the spotlight turns to professional and organisational networks, namely information-sharing, supervision, recording and compliance with procedures and legal rules. Some Local Safeguarding Adults Boards found the process of conducting and then using serious case reviews for service improvement challenging.

The cross-case approach to thematic analysis focuses on reports into situations where outcomes of professional and organisational intervention had been disappointing. Nonetheless, the themes derived from this analysis are similar to other research findings on what represents best practice when working with cases involving self-neglect.

The paper identifies learning for the effective commissioning and conduct of SCRs, and for service improvement with respect to practice with adults who self-neglect.

The paper offers further detailed analysis of a large sample of SCRs that builds the evidence-base for effective practice with adults who self-neglect and for efficient management of process of commissioning and conducting SCRs.