John Allen: Chief Ombudsman comments on record-high number of complaints made against government

The number of complaints going to the Office of the Ombudsman is soaring to record heights.

Its annual report finds more than eight thousand Official information complaints - a 30 percent increase.

The office also received 278 protected disclosures under the whistleblower law - up 26 percent.

Chief Ombudsman John Allen told Mike Hosking OIAs are an attractive option for people trying to raise issues with the Government.

He says public confidence in Government generally is on the decline and people are under a huge amount of pressure with cost of living. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Insight into our view of the public sector. The Ombudsman
annual report shows a record eighty one hundred and sixty
three official information at complaints, that is a thirty percent increase.
They also got two hundred and seventy eight protected disclosures
under the whistleblower law. That's up twenty six percent. John
Allen is the Chief Hombardsman, is with us. John Morning, Morning,
Mike La. I'm very well. Indeed, you haven't been in
the job long, have you no?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
About six months? Now?

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Is it fun?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah? It is fun. It's an extraordinary role to be
able to cast your eye over four thousand government agencies,
to be able to engage with the community around the
things that are concerning them, in how they are dealing
with those agencies, in being able to find a way
to create improvements in the processes.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
What's led to the increase?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
I think a few things first, As you know, I mean,
public confidence in government generally is declining. People are under
a huge amount of pressure as a consequence of cost
of living, in housing and tealth and all of those
sorts of things that we talk about all the time.
And the ombitement jurisdictions are really interesting. One because it's
free to the complainant, because it's independent of government, because

(01:07):
it's private, and because the process is inquisitorial, not adversarial,
which is the way the courts manage these things. So
it's a pretty attractive vehicle to be able to raise
concerns that you have with the state if you're an individual.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Is the term attractive vehicle a nice way of saying
a bunch of bored, lazy no hopers have got nothing
better to do with their time. But moan.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
No, I don't think that at all. If you look
at the substance of the complaints that we are getting.
These are people who have genuine issues and genuine concerns,
and as a consequence of the complaints that they are making,
we are able to both identify areas of improvement in
many cases and also look to systemic changes across the

(01:54):
entire system that benefit everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Do you know what percentage of those would lead to
what you've just explained? In other words, it was worth
complaining about, and here's what's happened because of it.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
I don't have a percentage that tells.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Me that half of them or a few, or I would.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Have said it would be maybe half of them my case.
So I mean, that's that's a that's a six month
observation on the on the things that come across my desk,
in which I see, in which I in which I engage.
But the reality is that it is a very effective
mechanism for actually making change because we can engage with

(02:31):
the agencies. We have the human stories from the complainants,
so we can we can tell those stories, and we
can look across all of the data and across the
entire system and say, these issues are coming up time
and time again. How do we fix them? Here's our recommendation.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
How do you explain your clearance rate which is higher
than the number of complaints you receive.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Ah, we're getting focused on getting things done more quickly.
So we've had a bit of a backlog over the
little while as a huge number of complaints growth creates
that sort of thing. And we're really now focused on
getting timely reports out because if they're not timely, they're
not going to be useful to drive change.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Now, I note in reading the report that you credited Bowsher,
of course, and that was the weirdest rule. Did you
know that? I mean, you're a young man, so it
doesn't apply to you, but you've got to retire at
the age of seventy two or I mean, who invented
that rule? I'd complained about that. In fact, I might
write to you and complain about it.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, yeah, well, I mean for those of us who
are sort of, you know, seventy two adjacent, it becomes
it's a bit of an issue, isn't it her? And
it does seem a pretty odd a pretty odd requirement
in the current world.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Exactly nice to talk to John Allen, who's a very
nice bloke who these days is the chief undbudsman. And
I know he's a very nice bloke because I did
a couple of things with them when he was the
head of New Zealand post years ago, and very very entertaining.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
He seemed to be intimating there that you were seventy
two adjacent, did you know what?

Speaker 1 (04:00):
I don't know what he was sing those of us.
He said that in a way he might be one
of those guys who looks a lot younger than he
actually is, because i'd have him I'm guessing late fifties,
early sixties, possibly at a push, so I'm maybe he's
maybe he's maybe it's been maybe when I worked with him,
it was like fifty years ago, and we're all kids,
and I've completely lost my mind. For more from the

(04:22):
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