One Complaint In Five Justified—Ombudsman

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30426, 28 April 1964, Page 14

One Complaint In Five Justified —Ombudsman

From October. 1962, when his office was established, until March this year, 1100 complaints had been received, said the Ombudsman (Sir Guy Powles) in an address to the Christchurch Businessmen’s Club yesterday. Of those, 760 were received in the last 12 months.

Sir Guy Powles said the rate was fairly constant, but there were seasonal variations. In winter the Ombudsman received twice as many complaints as in summer —indicating that persons spent the winter evenings writing letters and wrote one to the Ombudsman while they were about it. He said he had fully Investigated about half of all complaints received. The other half were either still under action (about 80),, declined because they were outside his jurisdiction, withdrawn by the complainant, or simply complaints which he was quite unable to under-; stand. Sir Guy Powles said that slightly more than 20 per cent (107) of the 505 cases which had been fully investigated he had found to be justified in one way or the other. They led to some remedial action of some kind, either in relieving the actual complaint itself, or in ensuring that it would not occur again, or both, or even leading to recommendations in a wider field. "I have found that in slightly more than half of the justified complaints the departments concerned have rectified the matter promptly and without waiting for my full investigation to be completed—or, in some cases, even started. “So, you see, there has been no shortage of complaints, and Government departments and agencies

have been reasonably ready to rectify many matters, either of their own volition or after a little pressure.” Discussing 100 of the more significant cases, Sir Guy Powles • said the greatest number. (40) complained of an unjust or unfair discretionary decision made by a department or board on statutory authority. He found about half were not justified.

“Most of the remainder were rectified by the Government agency concerned at some stage after I had commenced my investigation, but in several cases it was necessary for me to make a formal recommendation before the matter was put right. I may say that, while I am fully aware of the dangers involved in looking into the merits of a case, I have done so and recommended correction where it has seemed to me that the wrong decision has been made. So far this has proved to be a less dangerous course in practice than it has appeared to be in theory. •

“formally my recommendation is based on grounds other than a difference of judgment on the merits,' and results from- the discovery of some defect in the presentation of facts or the procedure followed, or the basing of a decision on wrong principles or irrelevancjes. Some of these cases have required long and detailed investigation, but the results can be far-reaching and are likely to influence the decisions in future cases. “In other words, such decisions encourage departmental officers to take great care in the exercise of discretionary powers which, be-

fore the office of Ombudsman was instituted, were final and not open to challenge or redress. 1 ’ Unreasonable Delay Sir Guy Powles said that of 14 cases where unreasonable i delay was alleged, four were unjustified, nine were recti- : fied, and in the remaining case the permanent head of the department concerned apologised handsomely to the comnlajnant. “Unnecessary delay and failure to keep the citizen -informed of the reason for and likelj period of necessary depay, are matters which can be . readily controlled by proner administrative measures within departments,” said-Sir Guy Powles. “Such delays should | not occur.” . He said he had received a j g tater number of complaints, I involving a- conflict between public and private interest, against local bodies, that were O’ tside his jurisdiction, than against agencies of central government.

Only two complaints of any significance alleged bad faith cr some degree of ' moral b’-me or corruption on the part of an officer. Thorough investigations found both cases to be completely unfounded. and he was able to clear the official concerned. He found two cases where departments had exceeded their proper functions and [were interfering in matters I which were not their concern, .Both complaints related to the same sort of activity, and he found both-to be justified. “As a result I have propounded certain principles which should govern departmental actions in matters left for local authority decision.”

Sir Guy Powles said he had had complaints from a few “crackpots”, but not a significant number. “The crackpot percentage has fallen substantially in the last few months,” he said. “This indicates that they have probably all written to me by now.” Coercive Powers

Sir Guy Powles said that so far he had not had to resort to his coercive powers. “However,” he added, “I would not like to prophesy that recourse to the coercive powers will never be necessary.” He said the flame of liberty had never burned brighter than it did today, and it had never been in such mortal danger of extinction. “It is on two sides—by a militant political philosophy from outside, and by suffocation from within.

“Of the two dangers, that of suffocation from .within is probably the more pressing, the more insidious, and the more lasting. That is one of the things I exist to prevent.”