Accountability & reporting

Legal services expenditure

Under Paragraph 11.1(ba) of the Legal Services Directions 2017, the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman is obliged to make publicly available its legal services expenditure for the previous financial year.

This is a statement of legal services expenditure published in accordance with paragraph 11.1(ba) of the Legal Services Directions 2017.

Expenditure	Amount ($) excluding GST
Expenditure	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24
External	145,075	397,785	418,182
Internal	785,388	781,288	1,073,793
Total	930,463	1,179,073	1,491,975

Senate order on government agency contracts

Pursuant to the Senate Order on non-corporate Commonwealth entity contracts, agency contracts entered into by the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman, which provide for a consideration to the value of $100,000 or more and which:

have not been fully performed as at 30 June 2022, or
which have been entered into during the 12 months prior to 30 June,

are required to be listed on the AusTender website. The report is titled Senate Order on Confidentiality in Procurement Contracts by Agency.

Some of the contracts listed contain confidentiality provisions of a general nature that are designed to protect the confidential information of the parties that may be obtained or generated in carrying out the contract.

The reasons for including such clauses include:

ordinary commercial prudence that requires protection of trade secrets, proprietary information and the like,
protection of Commonwealth material and personal information.

The Office has estimated its cost of complying with the Senate Order is $1,000. This is determined by calculating the time taken to collect, analyse and compile the information and applying salary costs and on-costs.

Senate Order – Financial Year 2023-24
Senate Order - Calendar Year 2023

Previous listings:

Portfolio Budget Statements

The Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman is a portfolio agency of the Attorney-General’s Department. The Portfolio Budget Statement for 2024-25’ are available on the Attorney-General's Department website, in addition to past Portfolio Budget Statements.

Grants

We do not administer discretionary grant programs.

Gifts and benefits register

Click here to view a list of gifts and benefits we have received.

Remuneration paid to Executives

As a Commonwealth Entity we provide an annual update on the remuneration paid to the executives in the Office, accessible in our annual report.

Breaches of the APS Code of Conduct procedures

Under subsection 15(3) of the Public Service Act 1999, the Commonwealth Ombudsman, Mr Iain Anderson must establish written procedures for determining APS Code of Conduct breaches and any sanctions to be imposed.

The Procedures are available here.

Agency Census Reports

Commonwealth Child Safe Framework – 2024 Statement of Compliance

The Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman (‘the Office’) is committed to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of children and young people. We seek to create and maintain behaviours, practices and an organisational culture that acknowledges the importance of child safety and wellbeing.

In line with the Commonwealth Child Safe Framework (the Framework), the Office has undertaken a child safety risk assessment for 2024 and determined the risk as low to medium. The assessment identified that the measures implemented to mitigate risks are appropriate.

The Office’s functions occasionally involve direct contact with children. Where there are interactions, they are likely to be brief, incidental to interactions with adults, and/or undertaken in a public environment or under the supervision of other people. Most interactions with or about children occur in the performance of the following functions:

Handling complaints made by children, or on behalf of a child by a parent or guardian
Visiting children in detention as the Independent Visitor for Children
Undertaking community engagement activities.

The Office is committed to continuously improving its practices and policies to ensure a safe environment for children. We have adopted the 10 National Principles for Child Safe Organisations and have made available to staff the training module on the Commonwealth Child Safe Framework. The Office also has rigorous pre-employment screening procedures which may include a security clearance assessment and, depending on the duties undertaken, a Working with Children Check in the relevant jurisdiction.

The Office recognises managing child safety is an ongoing process and will regularly review our practices to eliminate and appropriately manage risks and to ensure continued compliance with our obligations under the Framework.

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