I am pleased to present my first statement of strategy as Ombudsman and Information Commissioner. This Plan is the sixth review of strategic objectives by the Office of the Ombudsman and the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC) (incorporating the Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information (OCEI).
The Office of the Ombudsman also provides shared services for the Office of the Commission for Public Services Appointments (CPSA) and provides a Secretariat for the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPOC) (incorporating the Referendum Commission when established). The four Offices each carry out separate and distinct statutory functions. Nonetheless they function as a single amalgamated agency under one Vote and one Accounting Officer and a Management Team which manages the Organisation, while simultaneously protecting and preserving the statutory independence and functions of each of the constituent parts. Each Office has its own staff complement but the finance, human resources, legal, and information technology functions are shared between all four Offices.
This plan is concerned only with the Offices of the Ombudsman and Information Commissioner. A separate strategic plan exists for the CPSA. However, given the sharing of staff across all four Offices, in accordance with the needs and priorities of each Office, many aspects of this plan are clearly relevant to all staff. In particular, the plan reflects our commitment to a set of values that guide all of our staff in everything they do and our wider organisational goal of developing and enhancing our management and administrative frameworks to enable and underpin our objectives of improving the wider public service and delivering an excellent customer focused service.
The plan sets out our key objectives for the next three years, which will be supported by detailed annual business plans. It builds upon the significant achievements from the last three years and will help us to deliver continuous improvements in the services we provide to our customers.
My appointment in December 2013 coincided with an exciting time for both Offices. Over the past two years the legislation underpinning our work has undergone significant change. The Ombudsman (Amendment) Act 2012 extended my Office’s remit to cover the administrative actions of almost 200 additional public service providers. In July 2015, under the terms of SI 300 of 2015, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform declared private nursing homes, of which there are almost four hundred and thirty, to be reviewable agencies.
The passing of the Freedom of Information Act 2014 also brought about significant changes to the FOI regime and consequential challenges for the OIC. This Act repealed and replaced the FOI Acts 1997 and 2003 and reversed many of the amendments introduced in 2003 that had seriously curtailed the breadth of application of the 1997 Act. Application fees for making FOI requests were abolished and application fees for internal review and review by my Office were significantly reduced. The Act also brought a significant number of additional bodies within remit. The Department consulted extensively with my staff in the development of both pieces of legislation.
Both Offices have also undertaken comprehensive structural and process reviews in recent years following which significant changes were introduced. This has allowed us not only to deal effectively with the increasing demands for our services but also to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the services provided.
We have also had a significant impact on improving service delivery in the wider public service. In 2014, we published our first casebook containing summaries of a sample of complaints my Office has examined with a view to maximising opportunities for learning. In May 2015, we published a report on our first ever own-initiative investigation, Learning to Get Better. The investigation looked at how public hospitals in Ireland handle complaints about their services. The report contained a significant number of recommendations for improvement, all of which were accepted by the HSE and the Department of Health. In September, as a support for the private nursing homes that had recently come within remit, we developed a model complaints procedure for use within the sector.
The OIC has also introduced a number of initiatives aimed at improving service delivery in the wider public service. For example, it has commenced the drafting and publication of detailed guidance notes on all aspects of the FOI Act with a view to improving the standard of decision making within public bodies. It has also developed detailed guidance aimed at assisting public bodies in preparing focused submissions where their decisions are under review by the OIC.
This strategic plan aims to build upon the many successes we have achieved over the course of the current strategic period. It focuses in particular on extending/improving the impact of our Offices on the wider public service, on continuously improving the level of services we provide, and in ensuring that our systems and processes allow us to deliver on those objectives. For the first time, the plan also clearly identifies the core values that help to shape the way in which we deliver our services and that underpin everything we do.
Throughout the lifetime of the plan, we will continue to support and develop our staff through a variety of mechanisms such as induction, specialist training, broadening of work experience etc. in the interests of our staff and of our clients and the entire organisation. We will also continue to build and develop our relationship with the Oireachtas with a view to driving improved public service delivery.
The plan identifies a number of innovative process initiatives aimed at delivering upon the Office’s vision of “a public service that is fair, open, accountable and effective”. Based on the level of success achieved on foot of our last planning cycle, I have every confidence in our ability to again successfully realise the challenging key objectives we have set ourselves.
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Peter Tyndall
Ombudsman & Information Commissioner