The National Assembly for Wales' Finance Committee today announced it is undertaking an inquiry into the Consideration of Powers of the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales ("the Ombudsman").
Established by the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005, the Ombudsman has legal powers to look into complaints about public services and independent care providers in Wales.
Nick Bennett the Ombudsman, has highlighted five main areas for changes to the 2005 Act that he believes will strengthen the role.
The five key areas identified are:
- the ability for the Ombudsman to have own-initiative powers to enable him/her to initiate an investigations without having first received a complaint;
- the ability for the Ombudsman to accept oral complaints;
- to enable the Ombudsman to have a role in advising on complaints handling across public services;
- to extend the Ombudsman's jurisdiction into private health care to enable him/her to investigate when a patient has received private healthcare (self-funded not commissioned by the NHS) in conjunction with public healthcare; and
- the removal of the statutory bar which would allow the Ombudsman to consider a case which has or had the possibility of recourse to a court, tribunal or other mechanism for review.
Jocelyn Davies AM Chair of Finance Committee said:
"The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales has a very important role in scrutinising the work of public services.
"The Committee will be looking at these five specific areas and any other reform that may be needed to the current Act to decide if we need to strengthen the powers of the Ombudsman."