Chapter 4
Management and accountability
Information management and work practices
We continued to improve our use and management of information and work practices to support the performance of Commonwealth Ombudsman functions. In 2008–09 we continued the whole–of–office strategic approach to information management that started in 2007–08. We are mindful of the increasing reliance on IT for both internal purposes and as a form of communication with the public. We continuously review our information management practices to build on the work practice and system changes of the past several years, to deliver improved timeliness, efficiency and effectiveness in managing complaints, conducting inspections and generating reports.
To this end the office established a business improvement team in late 2008. Their brief is to review our work practices and identify areas for improvement. The team has prepared a number of papers for the office. They provided the impetus to revise our five-category complaint–handling structure and our administrative deficiency workflow. The papers were instrumental in streamlining office processes and improving efficiency. We are currently reviewing our initial management of approaches to the office to capitalise on the initiatives that the office has been working on over the past several years to better manage the increased volume and diverse nature of approaches.
We have also restructured the twin functions of IT and business improvement under the stewardship of one manager at the EL2 level. The expectation is that the dual role of the team will provide for better integration of business planning and the development of our IT capabilities, so that the office's IT development fully meets the business needs of the office.
The Information Management Committee oversees the management of information within the office and meets monthly. The committee monitors and develops plans for improvement in the office's handling and use of information, and the technology that supports this.
The committee has overseen a number of projects including:
- a project to implement an electronic records management system
- the revision and application of a business classification scheme which is appropriate and applicable to the office's needs
- the preparation and application of a number of issues papers to review business practices within the office
- the implementation of a virtual server network and other redundancy measures to ensure that the office's business practices are secure and continuous
- the redevelopment of the work practice guidelines and improved electronic accessibility for staff
- mapping of office workflows to assist in learning and development opportunities for staff and the evaluation of business practices.
In 2009–10 we will continue to work on:
- developing broader application of the office electronic records management system, in order to better integrate our complaint management system and workflows and further improve our intranet capability to assist in handling approaches and complaints
- improving IT workflow and change management procedures with particular emphasis on improving our public contact centre capability
- replacing redundant hardware in a planned and measured fashion
- enhancing interoperability with other agencies
- improving internet service delivery.
We implemented a range of other initiatives to improve complaint handling, partly in response to a client survey conducted late in 2007–08, enhanced our quality assurance processes, and revised the way in which we address requests for review of our decisions on complaints. These are described more fully in Chapter 3—Performance report.
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