Complaints

Your complaint can be made in a number of ways:

• Online
• In person at our Office
• In writing
• By telephone
• By email

Regardless of how you make your complaint, it should include:

• Your name, address and telephone number
• A concise summary of your complaint:
  • Who was involved?
  • What happened?
  • When did it happen?
  • Where did it happen?
  • Why the situation is unfair?
• What you have done to try and resolve your complaint and the result
• Copies of relevant letters or other documents
• The result you are seeking

If you need advice or assistance at any time, you can contact us. If you have difficulty writing a letter due to language problems or a disability, we can help. We can also arrange for translations, interpreters and other services.

After receiving your complaint, a Case Officer will be allocated to assess it. Sometimes the Case Officer may need to talk to you or the agency to properly understand and assess your complaint. The matters that may be considered during assessment include:

• Whether your complaint is within the Ombudsman's jurisdiction;
• Whether you have already attempted to resolve your concerns directly with the department, or you have good reasons for not having done so;
• Whether your complaint is about a matter which you became aware of within the past 12 months. Normally the Ombudsman will not accept a complaint about matters which occurred more than 12 months ago unless there are special circumstances or the matter is in the public interest;
• Whether your complaint would be more appropriately dealt with by a different body (eg. Anti-Discrimination Commission, Information Commissioner)

Investigating complaints can take some time. Factors contributing to this may include:

• the complexity of the issues raised in a complaint,
• the need to obtain information from a number of departmental staff,
• the need to provide procedural fairness and staff workloads.

If there are urgent aspects to your complaint, you should bring this to the attention of the Ombudsman as early as possible when you lodge your complaint. The Case Officer will be in regular contact with you throughout the course of the investigation.

We will make an assessment of your complaint when we consider we have enough information to determine:

1. what has happened, and
2. what should be done about it.

We will inform you of our assessment, and for more complex matters, provide you the opportunity to respond.

If we consider an authority has made an error, we will recommend the authority take the action we consider will remedy the problem, taking into account the outcome you told us you are seeking.

In many cases and where it is clear the authority has made an error, authorities agree to do some or all of the actions we recommend. However, we have no power to enforce our recommendations, and if an authority refuses to take the recommended action we may be unable to assist further.