The Ombudsman’s new approach will shift the emphasis of our work to the assistance we can provide to resolve complaints, without any need to pass judgement on whether the complaint arose from the fault of an Australian Government agency or the misapprehension of the complainant.
The Ombudsman’s work practices and complaint management system will change over the coming months. These changes will have an impact on the way the office operates.
The key to our new approach will be a shift in the emphasis of our work to the assistance we can provide to resolve complaints to our office and to achieve remedies as a result of our investigations. This will better reflect the work we do, helping resolve complaints from the public informally, often without any need to pass judgement on whether the complaint arose from the fault of an Australian Government department or agency or the misapprehension of the complainant.
The new approach to measuring our work and effectiveness also acknowledges that most complaints are resolved through the cooperation and responsiveness of agencies without the need for any formal expression of critical views.
In practice, the new approach will mean that ‘administrative deficiency’ will now only be recorded as an outcome of investigation following both a rigorous internal process, involving sign-off at the Senior Assistant Ombudsman level or above, and contact with the relevant agency officer to give the agency the opportunity to comment before we finalise the matter. The use of ‘administrative deficiency’ (in place of ‘defective administration’) will also help distinguish our work from matters dealt with under the Compensation for Detriment Caused by Defective Administration Scheme; the use of ‘defective administration’ as a criterion in both schemes has tended to confuse complainants and some agencies.
A Public Contact Team is being established in the Canberra office, through which all telephone complaints and inquiries will pass. The team will handle the majority of telephone contacts—for example, answering queries as to the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman, referring people to agency complaint-handling units, and resolving straightforward cases. Cases that require a more expert analysis or sustained investigation will be referred to the most appropriate investigation officer.
This is a far-reaching change to the way in which complaints are handled. Among the benefits that are expected from this change are:
- the efficient dispatch of simpler inquiries
- more consistency in public contact activities
- better allocation of cases to the most appropriate and skilled investigation officer
- early detection of emerging problem areas in government administration
- greater uniformity in data entry
- better supervision by senior officers of the work of the office.
Another objective motivating this change is to strengthen the role of the State and Territory branches of our national office. The advantages of a national office structure include personal contact with complainants, local knowledge of government service delivery, and interaction with community gatekeepers. More time can be spent by staff in State offices on developing that side of our work, and on investigating difficult cases, if less time is spent on routine public contact work and preliminary complaint analysis.
The upcoming work practice and systems changes will affect our statistical recording and reporting. Given that the changes are being implemented during a financial year, it may mean that our complaint statistics for 2005–06 are not representative or comparable with those for previous years. The changes will enable us to provide higher quality statistical reporting in the future.
Date of release: 29 November 2005