The Link Officer role

Every authority should appoint a ‘link officer’ who acts as a single point of contact for Ombudsman enquiries and casework. It is up to each authority who acts as its link officer. If that person is unable to fulfil the role for any reason (e.g annual leave) there should be others who can easily step into the role.

Authorities can have up to two link officers. However, we do not have the facility to send different types of enquiry to different officers. If an authority selects two link officers, both will receive all correspondence. It is then for each authority to determine how best to allocate and respond to our enquiries. We also need direct line numbers for all link officers to allow for effective communication.

In our experience the following works well:

• Use a generic email inbox that others can access to support the link officer, such as ‘ombudsman@council.org.uk. If others are carrying out tasks on behalf of the link officer (e.g. obtaining information), the link officer should ensure they have a means of monitoring performance.
• A link officer should have access to the authority’s complaint handling information so they can easily see if an authority has considered a complaint.
• A link officer should have sufficient status in the authority to be able to obtain a response to the Ombudsman’s enquiries within the necessary timescale and ensure any Ombudsman recommendations are acted on.
• A link officer should act as “the voice of the Ombudsman” within the organisation and be able to explain our legal powers and processes.
• Although our correspondence is addressed to the organisations Chief Executive or similar it is not necessary for them to have sight of all responses to Ombudsman enquiries or decisions. However the Chief Executive, Monitoring Officer and relevant head of service should be alerted to any draft public reports .
• If the authority has a separate complaints team it is best practice for the link officer to be part of that team. That way they can have oversight of a complaint from when it comes to the authority to when the Ombudsman issues a final decision on the complaint.

It is vital the link officer involves the right people at the right time. This helps with timely and pro-active responses to Ombudsman enquiries, draft decisions, and recommendations.

There is not a single model for successfully delivering the link officer role. Different organisations deliver this successfully in a variety of ways that suits existing structures. You can seek advice about how to deliver the link officer role from our External Training & Relationship Lead.

We store the contact details of link officers on our casework database. We also use these to send our Ombudsman Link newsletter which includes news about good practice guides, updates to our processes and upcoming events.

Letting us know about a change in link officer or contact arrangements

It is important that you tell us if the link officer has changed or if you wish to change the way we communicate with your organisation so we can update our systems. Please contact our External Training & Relationship Lead with the following details:

• Preferred title (e.g. Mr, Ms etc):
• Forename and Surname:
• Job Title:
• Direct e-mail address:
• E-mail address for Ombudsman correspondence if different (e.g. generic inbox):
• Direct telephone number:

We do not retain information about previous link officers on our system once we have been notified of a replacement.