CHAPTER 2The organisation

Organisation and structure

The national office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the office of the ACT Ombudsman are co-located in Canberra. The Commonwealth Ombudsman also has offices in Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.

The Ombudsman and two Deputy Ombudsmen are statutory officers appointed under the Ombudsman Act. Staff are employed under the Public Service Act 1999.

The office comprises a range of functional elements.

• Central office functions and responsibilities (including human resources, information technology, financial services, records management and public affairs) and the principal specialist teams are based in the national office in Canberra, as well as complaint handling relating to the ACT Ombudsman function.
• Offices throughout Australia handle complaints and undertake some specialist work. A Senior Assistant Ombudsman supervises the state and territory offices.

Details on the office’s senior executive and their responsibilities are set out in Chapter 4—Management and accountability

Figure 2.1 illustrates the organisational structure of the Ombudsman's office.