BackAt the 26th Presentation Ceremony of The Ombudsman’s Awards on 15 November 2023, the Ombudsman, Ms Winnie Chiu, presented the Grand Award to the Immigration Department (“ImmD”), an Award for Public Organisation to the Efficiency Office (“EO”) and the Hospital Authority (“HA”) separately, and the Award on Mediation to the Chief Secretary for Administration’s Office (“CSO”). Individual Awards were also given to 62 public officers.
Ms Chiu said, “Throughout the years, our Office has been like a clear mirror when handling public complaints: we examine complaint cases in an impartial manner, reveal the facts as they are, make objective and unbiased comments, then put forward improvement recommendations. Our ultimate goal is to lift the standard of public administration.”
As a six-time winner of the Grand Award, ImmD has triumphed more times at the Ombudsman’s Awards than any other department. In early 2023, there had been a sharp increase in demand for identity document replacement services. ImmD responded by implementing a series of measures, such as extended office hours, special service days on public holidays, additional days available for appointments to replace/apply for identity cards, enhanced website information, etc. It had, as always, provided flexible, efficient and “people-oriented” public services, and been cooperating proactively with the Office of The Ombudsman investigations.
In response to the Office inquiries into complaint cases, EO could always explain the course of events clearly and provide detailed records to give the Office full pictures of the cases. The 1823 contact centre under EO had been helpful in several direct investigations of the Office which involved only other departments. It readily provided the Office with useful data, case studies and its observations so that the Office could analyse the issues from multiple perspectives and make improvement recommendations.
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Source: The Office of the Ombudsman, Hong Kong, China
