CHAPTER 1year in review

Key activities for 2004–05

• We finalised 17,441 complaints and 18,939 complaint issues, and handled 12,013 other approaches.
  
  
• We completed five own motion and major investigations, with all Ombudsman recommendations being accepted by agencies.
  
  
• The Australian Government allocated increased funding in the 2004–05 budget for the Ombudsman to handle complaints arising under the new Free Trade Agreement with the United States of America and to provide the office with secure access to Fedlink.
  
  
• We completed a comprehensive review of the office's complaints management system and internal work practices. Improvements are to be initiated in the coming year to achieve better integrated and streamlined work practices.
  
  
• The office's internal complaint investigation guidelines were restructured and adapted for online use.
  
  
• We conducted two five-day Integrity Investigation Programs jointly with the AFP in May and June 2005.
  
  
• We co-sponsored a three-year study, entitled 'Whistling while they work', on whistleblowing protection laws across Australia.
  
  
• Ombudsman staff and representatives from a number of other agencies, and AusAID sponsored participants, attended the office's five-day Introductory Investigation Training Course in September 2004.
  
  
• We conducted 65 outreach activities, which together covered all States and Territories.
  
  
• The office hosted several senior-level delegations from foreign offices, including from China, Indonesia, Korea, the Republic of Maldives and the United Kingdom.
  
  
• We replaced the office's ageing desktop equipment.
  
  
• We hosted the first meeting of nearly all public sector and industry ombudsmen from Australia and New Zealand, with 17 participants.
  
  
• The Ombudsman and staff delivered over 30 papers and presentations at conferences and seminars held around Australia.

The office faced major challenges, some of a continuing nature.

• The small total number of staff in the office (102 full-time equivalent) is spread over eight separate offices, with as few as one staff member in two offices; maintaining an effective national office structure that integrates the work of all staff is a key plank in the Strategic Plan.
  
  
• The office has increased markedly in size and functions over the past two years; responding to this growth, while maintaining the traditions and stability of the office, is important.
  
  
• The office strives to balance the urgent and immediate pressures of resolving individual complaints with the broader gains achievable by careful targeting of major and systemic issues in own motion and major investigations.
  
  
• The continued pressure on staff, particularly from the volume of more complex complaint issues, has had to be addressed through a review of work practices and quality control.