CHAPTER 9Problem areas in government decision making

Complexity

Many of the complaints we receive stem from the complexity of legislation and government programs. Complexity can adversely affect people in different ways:

• a person might not understand what they have to do to obtain a government benefit
  
  
• advice given by an agency can be misunderstood, or not answer a person's unique or specific query
  
  
• a person might structure their affairs on a mistaken understanding of how a program applies to them
  
  
• someone can 'fall through the cracks' between government programs that do not interact seamlessly
  
  
• through confusion and inactivity, someone might fail to take a necessary action and be penalised for not doing so.

Many adverse consequences cannot be reversed, either because the damage has already occurred, or there is no discretion in the law to overturn the result. Nor does it seem likely that there will be any reduction in this complexity over time and a return to an era of fewer and simpler rules.

The Ombudsman's office carries out its complaint investigation role against this backdrop of complexity. The challenge is to develop government systems with an eye to this inevitable complexity and to build in ways of responding to the problems that people unexpectedly encounter. We mentioned different ways of doing this in previous annual reports. They include agencies paying administrative compensation to unwitting victims of administrative error; writing safety net discretions into statutory schemes to deal with the unanticipated consequences of laws; and providing simple remedies, such as an apology, when things go wrong.

Another important response is for agencies to have effective systems for internal review and complaint handling. On the one hand, this can enable a person to seek relief and assistance from an agency at an early stage and by an informal and flexible process. On the other hand, internal complaint handling can provide an agency with an early opportunity to learn of problems that are arising in the administration of its programs.

These points are illustrated in the following discussion of the important role that complaint handling can play in two areas of growing complexity in government—the administration of taxation laws, and airport management and security vetting.

Administration of the tax legislation

In March 2006, the Ombudsman made a submission to the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (JCPAA) regarding the administration of the tax legislation. Since the role of the Taxation Ombudsman was vested in our office in 1995, we have received approximately 22,000 complaints about the ATO. Coupled with our own motion investigations, this has given us some insight into the difficulties that taxpayers experience with the existing system.

Many of the tax complaints we receive relate to the complexity of the legislation. Because modern commercial activities and financial transactions are complex, there has to be some degree of complexity in the tax law. In our submission to the JCPAA we argued that this places an additional responsibility on the ATO to ensure that the underpinning administrative processes are as simple as possible. Further, it is important that effective review and complaint mechanisms are available to aggrieved taxpayers and that the ATO recognises its responsibility to educate taxpayers to navigate this complexity.

'Many of the tax complaints we receive relate to the complexity of the legislation.'

We found that the ATO offers several review options that work well for most taxpayers. Similarly, an accessible internal complaints system complements our role and reflects the ATO's commitment to complaint resolution. The ATO has also been proactive in making documents such as the Compliance Program and tax rulings available on its internet site to assist in strengthening understanding of the legislation and supporting policies. This framework means that sometimes our role is to explain the law, rather than actively investigate a complaint.

Complaint management in airports

During the year, we noted an increase in complaints about aspects of airport administration. Two factors seem to lie behind this trend. One is the larger number of organisations, government and non-government, that have a role in providing services at airports and managing the flow of passengers and goods. A great range of activities take place at airports, and some government functions are outsourced to private sector organisations.The other factor is the heightened security measures at airports that bring passengers into contact with uniformed and non-uniformed public servants and private contractors. Security vetting can also be a cause of frustration for passengers, particularly if they are delayed or miss a flight.

The Ombudsman decided to respond to this increase in complaints about airport administration by conducting an own motion investigation into the accessibility of complaint channels available to passengers. Among the issues that warranted investigation were whether the complaint mechanisms of individual agencies were adequate, whether those mechanisms were sufficiently integrated with each other, and whether there was a danger that people with genuine problems would fall between the boundary lines of different complaint schemes.

Our initial survey of complaints suggested that passengers could find it difficult to complain about the conduct of an official at an airport. Some passengers had difficulty in identifying the organisation for which an official was working or the particular official involved. The similar appearance of some uniforms, combined with the stresses experienced by passengers, could lead to misidentification.

Even if a passenger were able to identify the official and their organisation, the appropriate complaint channel was not always apparent. There was little information posted in airports to make passengers aware of their right to complain or the manner in which a complaint should be made. Given these issues, a passenger may not always complain to the correct authority in the first instance.

A further issue of concern was that the government agencies involved in airport administration did not appear to work as collaboratively as they might. For example, complaints incorrectly received by one department were not necessarily forwarded to the correct agency, increasing the risk of complaints being overlooked.

In investigating this issue, we focused on bringing together the agencies involved in airport administration and encouraging them to work towards a common approach in addressing the problems faced by dissatisfied customers. We promoted the development of a simple, accessible complaint-handling mechanism across all agencies or, failing that, complementary, seamless processes for transferring misdirected complaints. The project also provides an opportunity to test whether the complaint-handling mechanisms used by agencies meet a common benchmark, such as the new Australian Standard on complaint handling (AS ISO 10002–2006).

'... we focused on bringing together the agencies involved ... and encouraging them to work towards a common approach ...'

We invited representatives from the various agencies involved with airport administration to attend a workshop and discuss an issues paper prepared by our office. From those discussions we developed an interim report that will be sent to relevant agencies for comment early in 2006–07. The report will be published once comments are received from the agencies.