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The post of Parliamentary Ombudsman is attached to the Westminster Parliament , with additional posts at the Scottish Parliament , the Welsh Assembly and other government institutions. ABOUT UK OMBUDSMAN SERVICES The creation of the post of the Parliamentary Ombudsman was spurred on by the 1954 Crichel Down affair and by the activism of pressure groups, including the Society For Individual Freedom . The position was created, and his or her powers are documented in, the Parliamentary Commissioner Act Of 1967 , the most notable section of which is s4 and Schedule 2, which constrain the powers of the incumbent ombudsman. Amongst other things, the ombudsman cannot investigate Crime , national security, foreign affairs, the armed forces and other civil services. However, the office of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman emphasises that it looks into complaints "that government departments, their agencies and some other public bodies in the UK - and the NHS in England - have not acted properly or fairly or have provided a poor service." The first UK Ombudsman was Sir Alan Marre , a career civil servant who later became chairman of Age Concern and the post is currently held by Ann Abraham (since 2002). She is a former director of the National Association of Citizen's Advice Bureau x. THE OMBUDSMAN'S PROCESS Those seeking the assistance of the PCA generally find the process to be difficult. Firstly, all complaints have to go through a Member Of Parliament (MP); this is known as the 'MP filter', which checks the legitimacy of complaints. In many cases, an MP attempts to solve the problem themselves, though the effectiveness of this can be called into question. Secondly, the Ombudsman rejects nearly 50% of his received applications (once that have passed through the filter) at first instance. Finally, the ombudsman will not investigate complaints where recourse to an alternate remedy (tribunal, internal complaints etc) exists. This can be extremely offputting for complainants, most of whom do not want to get involved in this process. If a complainant can plough through all this, complaint resolution normally takes about 40 weeks. THE OMBUDSMAN'S POWERS The Ombudsman's powers are completely non-binding upon any authority. He or she may publish a report, but that is all the coercion he can assert, relying instead upon credibility. Usually, this does exert sufficient Moral influence to make an authority change its decision. The Ombudsman does not exist to complain about the merits of a decision. For example, in 1996 those suffering 'planning blight' on their houses due to the creation of the Channel Tunnel were eventually awarded compensation without admission of Fault or Liability . Finally, the Ombudsman's decision may be challenged by judicial review if there is deemed to be a failure on the Ombudsman's part to consider whether the complaint is suitable for judicial resolution. This happens rarely, but does occur. For example, in ''R v PCA, Ex Parte Dyer {Link without Title} '', a complaint was addressed, but the plaintiff considered the remedy inadequate. The House Of Lords , however, ruled that the plaintiff should be satisfied with the remedy obtained. CRITICISM The impartiality of some UK Ombudsman services has been questioned. EXTERNAL LINK
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