Section 5 - General review of advocacy, complaint, inspection and whistle-blowing arrangements of relevant authorities
The Commissioner’s powers contained in this section enable him/her to review a range of activities carried out by a group of organisations and individuals that are known in the Commissioner for Older People Act (Northern Ireland) 2011 as relevant authorities (see Section 26 and Schedule 3). The purpose of these reviews is to enable the Commissioner to discover whether the procedures that these organisations have in place have been effective in promoting and protecting the interests of older people.
However before the Commissioner is able to use these powers he/she must first confirm:
that he/she has good reason to believe that the organisation’s procedures are not working properly or are not working at all; and
in the case of inspection arrangements, that there is no other organisation or person that is likely to review the inspection arrangements. This is to avoid the Commissioner reviewing inspection arrangements when there is already an organisation that has the legal power to undertake this and has done so or is planning to do so.
In the case where an organisation does not have appropriate procedures in place at all, the Commissioner can carry out a review to see what the effect of this is on older people
