BackThe Ombudsman Quarterly Review presents the following issues:
Key Priorities
Funding from Budget 2017 will enable the Office to pursue two key priorities for the coming year, both of which go to the heart of the Ombudsman’s role as Parliament’s watchdog. First is to continue increasing agency compliance with the Official Information Act, and in so doing contribute to the Act’s purpose to “increase progressively the availability of official information”. At the end of 2015, we released the report Not a game of hide and seek, which analysed agencies’ practice around the OIA and recommended improvements.
Since then, we’ve made changes in our office to improve our own handling of complaints; we’ve released our first set of OIA statistics with the State Services Commission; more agencies are coming to us for training and advice on best practice; and Budget funding will now enable us to deliver our strategy to increase overall transparency in the OIA’s operation.
The second priority for the year ahead is to extend the intensity and regularity of our inspections of prisons, to ensure the humane treatment of vulnerable people held in these places of detention. Funding from Budget 2017 will significantly enhance our activities in this area, not least by allowing us to increase our number of fulltime OPCAT (Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture) inspectors from three to eight. We plan more unannounced inspections of individual prison facilities as well as more in-depth inspections.
Structure Changes
Within the Office, we’ve made the final changes to our structure to ensure we’re well positioned to deliver on our strategic intentions. We’ve created two main business groups: Complaints Resolution, focusing on the firm, fair and timely resolution of complaints; and Compliance and Practice, focusing on systemic interventions and advice, guidance and training to improve administrative practice generally.
Improving the operation of the OIA
Improving the operation of the Official Information Act will lead to better public access to official information, enhanced respect for the law, and participation in government decision making. The Ombudsman’s 2015 report Not a game of hide and seek identified issues with some agencies’ handling of the OIA, and made a number of recommendations to improve agency compliance. Our OIA Strategy to 2020, Improving the operation of the OIA, puts these recommendations into action with a mix of proactive interventions, guidance and support for agencies, publication of OIA data, and fast, effective complaints resolution and investigation. We’re seeing tangible gains from the streamlining of our structure and processes to achieve faster responses and complaint resolution.
The full report is available when you click on the link below.
Source: Ombudsman Office, New Zealand
