Complaint handling in Small Agencies

Commonwealth Ombudsman 30th Anniversary Seminar

Complaint handling in Small Agencies

Brett Phillips, Executive Director, Office of Regulatory Services

Office of Regulatory Services 

• Established in 2006
• Workcover 
• Fair Trading 
• Registrar General 
• Parking Operations and Review 
• Independent Competition and Review Commission 

Functions of ORS 

• Client services function 
  • Births, Deaths and Marriages; 
  • Land titles; 
  • Business Names; 
  • Rental Bonds; 
  • Associations and Charitable Collections; 
  • Licensing of Regulated Industries; 
  • Advice. 
• Education and Public Information function 
  • Alcohol awareness; 
  • OH&S awards; 
  • Publishing industry specific guides; 
• Compliance function 
  • Workplace safety compliance; 
  • Workers compensation’ 
  • Industry specific compliance (agents, liquor,); 
  • General Fair Trading compliance;
  • Some health related compliance (tobacco) 
  • Local government compliance (parking, public places) 
• Enforcement/Appeal function
  • Review of parking infringements; 
  • Workplace safety prosecutions (criminal); 
  • Industry disciplinary action (liquor board); 
  • Civil proceedings on behalf of consumers; 
  • Mediation under industry codes of practice. 

Complaint handling 

• Each part of business conducted by ORS included a separate advice and complaint function 
• Resources put into handling complaints varied 
  • Workcover and Fair Trading had units devoted to complaint handling; 
  • Parking Review deals with large number of complaints; 
  • Some functions limited (ie audit); 
  • Some areas had no process (ie charitable collections) 
• Complaints vary 
  • Safety in the workplace; 
  • Selling and lighting fireworks; 
  • Fee setting in retirement villages; 
  • Unsatisfactory goods or services; 
  • Illegal parking; 
  • Inappropriate business name; 
  • Not honouring warranties. 
• Complaint can be about other government agencies; 
• Complaint can be about services provided by ORS 
  • Appeals against parking infringements; 
  • Fair Trading cannot enforce judgment; 
  • Workcover cannot give priority to inspection. 
• Response to complaints varies: 
  • Phone discussions between parties; 
  • Formal requests for information; 
  • Mediation; 
  • Statutory power to undertake disciplinary action, or refer for criminal proceedings; 
  • Statutory power to undertake civil action on behalf of consumer. 

Challenges for small agencies

• What expertise do you need to deal with complaints (ORS administers over 70 pieces of legislation)?; 
• Prioritising complaints (some may be life and death);
• The level of assistance (statutory powers can exceed the actual ability to help); 
• The level of discretion used to resolve a complaint; 
• Consistency in approach. 

We handle complaints well when 

• Our processes are documented and known to our stakeholders; 
• Our staff are clear about their roles; 
• We act within our knowledge and capacity; 
• We treat all stakeholders fairly and impartially. 

We don’t handle complaints well when we 

• Deal with people differently; 
• Handle complaints outside the normal process (we don’t follow procedure); 
• Make promises that we cannot keep –“we will get your money back” 
• Pretend that we are stronger than we are. 

Early lessons learned 

• Too many points of entry for consumers/stakeholders; (2 locations, perhaps 6 points of entry) 
• No common complaint handling policy 
• Need to share information better; 
• Systems need greater interaction.