Facts and Figures

 The traditional work of the Ombudsman is dealing with complaints. Due to different legislative requirements, some complaints are dealt with by us while others are dealt with by the agency subject of complaint. We monitor and review how those complaints are handled. We separate our complaint work calling matters that we handle directly ‘complaints’ and matters we oversight ‘notifications’.

We further classify our complaints and notifications as ‘formal’ or ‘informal’. ‘Formal’ usually refers to written complaints while ‘informal’ is mostly telephone contacts.

With the matters we oversight, we try to reduce the number of matters reported to us by working with agencies to improve the way they deal with complaints. If we are satisfied that an agency has sound complaint handling and investigative systems in place, we can enter into a formal agreement with them called a class and kind agreement. Although we may not receive certain complaints, we proactively audit how these complaints are handled by the agency.

We report on the number of matters received annually, based on financial years. The complaints and notifications numbers can change from year to year depending on any number of things including any changes to our class or kind agreements or high profile public interest issues being discussed within the community.

In 2011-2012 we received 9,504 formal matters and 23,849 informal matters.

The following table shows the numbers of formal complaints and notifications received each month over the last three financial years. As well as year to date complaint numbers for 2012-2013. The accompanying graph shows visually formal complaint trends over this three year period.

The following table shows the numbers of informal complaints and notifications received each month over the last three financial years as well as year to date informal complaint numbers for 2012-2013. The accompanying graph shows visually informal complaint trends over this three year period.