The NSW Ombudsman is an independent and impartial watchdog. Our job is to make sure that the agencies we watch over fulfil their functions properly and improve their delivery of services to the public. We help agencies to be aware of their responsibilities to the public, to act reasonably and to comply with the law and best practice in administration.
We are independent of the government of the day and accountable to the public through the NSW Parliament.
We are the State’s Parliamentary Ombudsman, established by an Act of Parliament in 1975. Like many other Ombudsman around the world, our office was modeled on the Justitie-Ombudsman created in Sweden in 1809. The primary purpose of that body was to investigate complaints about government administration. Loosely translated, the term Ombudsman means ‘the citizen’s defender’ or ‘representative of the people’.
Many countries have adopted the Ombudsman concept and there are now more than 150 Ombudsman-type bodies affiliated to the International Ombudsman Institute. Australia has a Commonwealth Ombudsman and a Parliamentary Ombudsman in every state and the Northern Territory.
Every member of the public has the right to complain to us, so much of our work is generated by complaints. We also handle complaints by people who work for the agencies we keep watch over.
We believe that complaints are one of the best sources of feedback on how an agency is performing. This is why we encourage and help agencies to have effective complaint handling systems so that they can better handle complaints about themselves and use the feedback to improve the way they do things.
The current Ombudsman is Bruce Barbour. He has been the Ombudsman since June 2000 and is the fifth person to hold that office.
Ombudsman the NSW: saludos Rodrigo González Fernandez consultajuridica.blogspot.com
