The challenge for Ombudsmen everywhere is to remain relevant in a changing social, political and technological environment. This Office is responding to that challenge in a variety of ways.
Work has begun on a programme of renewal within the Office, designed to achieve improvements in professional practice and administration. We hope this will result in an improved ability to meet the needs of agencies and complainants in a more timely and effective manner. It will also enable us to become more proactive in helping agencies to improve their complaints handling, so that complainants can be heard more effectively and better understand the agencies’ approach to their concerns.
We are also undertaking research with our stakeholders – both agencies and complainants – to obtain feedback on how the Office is perceived and to identify areas where our processes (and the resources we provide) can be improved.
In response to a growing desire from both agencies and individuals for more up-to-date indications of how the Ombudsmen have formed opinions on various issues, we will now publish our Case Notes on a more regular basis through the Office website. Further development of the website will also enable searching for particular cases which illustrate the Ombudsmen’s approach to be achieved more effectively.
In these and other ways we hope to enhance further the reputation of the Office for the quality of its work with agencies and complainants; for contributing to effective governance in the wider state sector; and for enabling citizens at every level of society to participate more fully in the democratic process by having access to information which will assist them to do that.
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