Foreword | Commonwealth Ombudsman Annual Report 2007-08

 

Foreword

There was a large increase in the number of people who approached the Ombudsman’s office for assistance in 2007–08. We received a record number of 39,932 approaches and complaints—a 20% increase on the previous year.

Many of those who approached the office—just over half—did so about an issue that was beyond our jurisdiction. The assistance we could provide was to direct the caller to another place for help, or to explain other options. This has become an important aspect of the work of the office. Increasingly, it seems, people turn to an Ombudsman’s office for assistance in resolving a problem with government orbusiness.

The complaints we received about matters within jurisdiction increased by 9%. The areas of biggest increase tended to be where a new or revised government program was implemented that advantaged some people and disadvantaged others. Examples were complaints about the Northern Territory Emergency Response, the new child support formula, and changes in the Welfare to Work job participation requirements. A similar increase in postal complaints seemed to reflect an increased use of parcel delivery services for goods ordered over the internet.

As those trends illustrate, a change in government services or business practices is sure to generate complaints about the changes and how they impact on people. The integrity of a new program will partially rest on whether those grievances can be raised and answered in a fair and independent manner. Complaint handling, in that sense, can bolster public confidence that unpopular decisions are properly made.

Complaints also stem from the complexity of the laws and programs administered by government agencies. It can be vexing for members of the public if they cannot understand why a decision was made, or what must be done to satisfy a government requirement. That was a theme in many complaints received by the Ombudsman’s office during the year.

In complex systems it is also more likely that administrative errors will be made—that an agency, for example, will give inadequate or perplexing advice to a person, will take too long to make a decision, or will make a faulty decision. The consequence, even of a simple administrative error or oversight, can be that a person is misled about their rights, is wrongly refused a benefit to which they are entitled, or incurs an administrative penalty. Small errors can cause great damage.

Those points are developed in three ways in this report. First, the report highlights the importance attached by the Ombudsman’s office to providing an appropriate remedy to a complainant. A remedy was provided to a person in over 3,400 cases in the past year. This has become a core statistic in portraying the work of the office. Independently of whether we conduct a painstaking investigation or identify a manifest error by an agency, providing a practical remedy to a person will often resolve their grievance.

As illustrated by the case studies in this report, an effective remedy can be as undemanding for an agency as better explaining its actions, expediting a decision or action, or apologising for a mistake or slip-up. Sometimes that will not suffice, and a different remedy such as financial compensation or changing a decision may be a more appropriate response.

A second way this report draws out the themes in the year’s work is by pointing to the broader lessons that a single complaint or problem can teach. Administrative errors can be one-off or exceptional, but just as commonly they point to a weakness in an agency’s processes. A strong theme in our work in the past year was to explain how complaints can provide a window on larger problems that need to be corrected. The lesson can be just as relevant to otheragencies.

This theme was taken up in special Ombudsman reports published during the year, and also in a new e-bulletin service on recent complaints handled by the office. A paramount lesson in many of the case studies in those publications and in this report has to do with the importance of basic administration—recordkeeping, letter writing, oral communication, reasons for decision, procedural fairness, complaint handling, staff training and case review. Problems that inconvenience or harm members of the public can arise in all areasof government and in the best-designed programs.

Third, as discussed in this report, the office conducted or initiated a record number of own motion investigations during the year. Some of these investigations were triggered by individual complaints which pointed to a systemic or structural problem in government that warranted broader investigation. Some other investigations were in furtherance of the specialist oversight roles that have recently been given to the Ombudsman’s office.

The office plans to intensify its own motion and auditing role in the coming years. Individual complaint handling will always remain the core business of the office, but needs to be supplemented by other techniques for identifying problems and improving government. This is a necessary response to the growing size and complexity of government and the frequent contact that people have with government across all aspects of their lives.

The Ombudsman’s office is well suited to playing more of a monitoring and administrative auditing role than it has in the past. Our daily contact with the public on all aspects of government draws attention to issues that are of concern to people and to problems that will worsen if not tackled early. This extra oversight can assist government to strengthen its programs and administration.

One other development in the office during the year that warrants special mention is that the Ombudsman and other independent agencies in the portfolio of the Prime Minister have commenced meeting as an integrity group in government. The other agencies are the Australian National Audit Office, Australian Public Service Commission, Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, National Archives and Privacy Commissioner. This is a welcome development which highlights the independent role these agencies jointly play in working to strengthen executive government, safeguard integrity and enhance accountability to the public.

John McMillan
Commonwealth Ombudsman