The Commonwealth Ombudsman has released a report of his enquiry into complaints handling in the Australian Public Service (APS).
The Lessons in good complaint handling report followed a pilot Complaint Assurance Project initiated by the Ombudsman last year which saw the complaints handling procedures of three APS Agencies examined.
The Ombudsman, Michael Manthorpe said the Agencies involved were the then-Department of Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business; the Australian Federal Police and the Ombudsman Office’s own Complaints Management and Education Branch (CMEB).
“I would like to thank Employment and ACT Policing for agreeing to participate in the pilot project,” Mr Manthorpe said.
“In this report I have highlighted some of the areas for improvement we identified across the three agencies in the 2019 review and shared some initiatives which I consider to be examples of best practice.”
Mr Manthorpe said he was committed to holding his own Office to the same standards to which he held other Agencies.
“With this in mind, I engaged secondees from the NSW Ombudsman’s Office and the Australian National Audit Office in the project to conduct a review of my Office’s own CMEB,” he said.
“I hope this report assists other Agencies to reflect on their complaint handling practices and provides ideas for addressing issues they might also be experiencing.”
He said he would expand the project to other Agencies in Commonwealth and ACT Governments during 2020.
“Complaints provide vital intelligence to Agencies about how they do business,” Mr Manthorpe said.
“It is essential that complainants are able to access timely, responsive complaint mechanisms and Agencies are committed to acting on and learning from that feedback,” he said.
“My Office also supports Government Agencies to improve their complaint handling practices through a range of training workshops on best practice complaint handling.”
The Ombudsman’s 27-page report can be accessed at this PS News link.
