Complaints
Making a complaint
If you think we can help you, please click on the button below that best describes what you are complaining about.
What you can complain about to us
Our complaint handling work is aimed at exposing and eliminating conduct
that is illegal, unreasonable, unjust or oppressive, improperly
discriminatory, based on improper or irrelevant grounds, based on a
mistake of law or fact, or otherwise wrong.
What you cannot complain to us about
Our legislation limits what matters we can deal with. For example we cannot investigate the conduct of:
Public interest disclosure
People who work in the public sector generally know when something is wrong. They often know when a colleague is doing the wrong thing. They certainly know when systems aren’t working properly and they often know when their organisation is wasting public funds.
The Public Interest Disclosures Act 1994 (PID Act) sets in place a system to encourage public officials to report serious wrongdoing.
Official community visitors
We are responsible for coordinating the Official Community Visitor (OCV) scheme.
Information for agencies and investigators
The Ombudsman is not an advocate for complainants. We act impartially and independently of both the agency we investigate and the complainants whose grievances we investigate.
We have developed guidelines and other resources to assist complaint handlers and our staff are always available to provide advice and guidance to agencies on how their policies, procedures and complaint handling processes can be improved.
We also have an important role in relation to systems within agencies for dealing with public interest disclosures made by employees.
We also provide training for staff of agencies on complaint handling and investigation techniques.