CHAPTER 7Looking at the agencies

Introduction

As in previous years, the majority of approaches and complaints received within the Ombudsman's jurisdiction (75%) concerned the five Australian Government agencies listed below. This chapter focuses on particular issues that arose during 2005–06 in investigating complaints about these agencies.

• Centrelink—7,095 approaches and complaints
• Child Support Agency—1,891 approaches and complaints
• Australian Taxation Office—1,451 approaches and complaints
• Australia Post—1,303 approaches and complaints
• Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs—1,250 approaches and complaints.

This chapter also looks at three other specialised areas of our complaint work: the Australian Defence Force, handled by the Ombudsman discharging the role of Defence Force Ombudsman; the Australian Federal Police, handled under the Complaints (Australian Federal Police) Act 1981; and the handling by agencies of freedom of information requests.

The 'Other agencies' section of this chapter provides examples of complaints received about agencies such as the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, Telstra Corporation, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

While the discussion and analysis of complaints arising in specific areas of government illustrates the role of the Ombudsman, it does not fully portray the diversity of the work of the office. The issues raised in complaints to the Ombudsman are mostly about difficulties that arise between people and government generally rather than about specific problems areas. We take up some of these general themes in other chapters of this report (Chapter 8—How the Ombudsman helped people, and Chapter 9—Problem areas in government decision making). Difficulties that commonly arise are about inadequate explanation of adverse decisions, deficient record keeping, delay in decision making, and discourtesy by agency officers.

The focus on complaints about specific agencies does not by itself accurately portray the standard of administration in those agencies. Issues have been selected in part to show the aspects of government about which people approach the Ombudsman. A common feature of each of the agencies is that they engage daily in a high number of direct transactions with members of the public. While complaints to the Ombudsman are only a minor fraction of the decisions and actions taken each year by agencies, they illustrate the difficulties that people face in dealing with government and to that extent provide valuable insight into the operation of government.

'... complaints to the Ombudsman are only a minor fraction of the decisions and actions taken each year by agencies ...'

Figure 7.1 shows approaches and complaints received from particular agencies. A detailed breakdown of complaints by portfolio and agency is in Appendix 4—Statistics.