We call on the Government to create strict statutory legislation making it a specific criminal offence for local authority officials, housing officers, social care workers, and managers to deliberately abuse public trust, withhold statutory support, or alter, delete, and spoliate public safeguarding and housing records.

We call upon Parliament that allegations of systemic institutional abuse, data manipulation, and targeted neglect by Council staff be subjected to independent external criminal investigations by police forces, ending the current culture where public officials act as if they are completely above the law.

Currently, a dangerous culture of impunity exists within local Government. Council and housing officials know they can actively abuse, neglect, and fail the most vulnerable members of the public- without ever facing a criminal investigation.

The existing regulatory systems, such as the Local Government and Housing Ombudsman, are entirely toothless. They are restricted to finding "Maladministration" and have no power to criminally prosecute individuals. This lack of personal liability means corrupt or negligent officials hide behind the corporate shield of the Council, knowing they face no personal criminal record, or prison time for actions that would see ordinary citizens prosecuted.

Public officials must no longer be above the law. We need specific criminal penalties to deter institutional abuse, enforce personal accountability, and protect vulnerable citizens from predatory state neglect.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The Government introduced the Public Office (Accountability) Bill (the official name for the Hillsborough law) to the House of Commons in September 2025. While it successfully passed through the House of Commons in July 2026, it is currently working its way through the House of Lords, because it hasn't received Royal Assent yet, Council Officials cannot currently be prosecuted under it. Furthermore, there is a massive flaw in the way the Government wrote the draft bill.

The Main Loopholes In The 2025/2026 Hillsborough Law: It only triggers after a major disaster or formal inquiry. As currently drafted, the strict criminal penalties for breaking the "Duty of Candour" (the duty to tell the truth) are mostly designed to apply when officials are giving evidence to formal public inquiries, inquests, or major statutory investigations. It does not easily cover a rogue council caseworker or housing officer quietly deleting records during a routine day-to-day safeguarding dispute with an individual family.

The Bill splits honesty into two categories. For massive disasters, it carries criminal liability. But for day-to-day public office management, it relies on a "General Duty of Candour", which just forces councils to update their internal ethical codes without facing automatic Police Prosecution if they breach them.

The Hillsborough Law proves that Parliament knows Public Officials coverup their tracks, but the Law doesn't go far enough for individuals, families fighting local councils.

Specific Laws We Are Calling For: We call upon Parliament to close institutional loopholes that allow corrupt or negligent Council, Housing, and Social Care Officials to act as if they are above the Law. We are calling for the following specific legislative changes:

1. Expand The Public Office (Accountability) Bill (The Hillsborough Law): The strict criminal penalties for breaching the Statutory Duty of Candour must be expanded. The Law must explicitly cover day-to-day casework, individual housing applications, and personal safeguarding files- not just major public disasters. Deleting or falsifying an ordinary citizen's records must carry immediate criminal liability.
2. Introduce A Statutory Offence For Data Spoliation And Abuse Of Public Office: Parliament must replace the outdated common Law offence of "Misconduct In Public Office"- which is almost impossible to prosecute- with a clear, codified statutory criminal Law. This new Law must make the intentional withholding, destruction or alteration of public files a personal criminal offence carrying mandatory prison sentences for the officials responsible.
3. Reform The Local Government Act 1974 and Housing Act 1996: The legal frameworks governing the Local Government must be overhauled. We call upon Parliament to create a statutory "Duty to Refer" that legally compels the local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) and, the Housing Ombudsman to bypass internal Council procedures and refer cases directly to the police or the National Crime Agency (NCA) the moment evidence of record tampering, social care coverups or systemic public abuse is detected.

This petition is partly built on formal recommendations made by the law commission in December 2020. We call upon Parliament that the law commission's original vision for comprehensive, universal public accountability is fully realised.

We are specifically calling for strict Criminal Penalties for data manipulation and Abuse of Power by Council and Housing Officials on a day-to-day basis- closing critical gaps left unaddressed by current proposals.