BackOn 17 March 2015 a successful Webinar co-sponsored by the Open Government Partnership (OGP), the World Bank Governance Global Practice (GGP) and the International Ombudsman Institute (IOI) was held. On behalf of the IOI, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Jim Martin and the Ombudsman of the city of Toronto, Canada, Fiona Crean, shared their experiences regarding the opportunities for Ombudsman offices to utilize Ombudsman evaluations and their impact on the respective countries’ OGP processes. More than 80 participants from all over the world actively followed the webinar ensuring a lively debate.
Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Jim Martin opened the webinar and shared his experiences about the collection of data, the areas and subjects of complaints at local government levels and the relationship between the Complaints Handling Procedure (CHP) and the Public Service Improvement Framework. A brief summary of what the complaint world used to look like in Scotland in the past and the aims of the Complaints Standards Authority was followed by a presentation of the core elements of all CHPs, i.e. identifying ownership and responsibility of frontline staff or leadership and governance as the main catalysts for change. Jim Martin concluded that former critical attitude of organisations has now lead to their support of the CHP as a tool for improving performance and customer relation, marking a change in culture towards one of valuing complaints and thereby further improving the reputation of the Ombudsman.
In her presentation, Toronto Ombudsman Fiona Crean shared findings of a recent report on the impact of Ombudsman investigations on public administration of Toronto's local government. Fione Crean explained why Ombudsman institutions should evaluate their performance and further explored the process of self-assessment, the impact of systemic investigations on public administration and the guiding principle of fairness in public services. Independent researchers Dr. Myer Siemiatycki and Dr. Andrea M. Noack of Ryerson University illustrated the qualitative case study of the Toronto Ombudsman`s impact on public administration. The study, which is based on in-depth interviews with senior public servants, triggered an overwhelmingly positive response and created the foundation for the development of an evaluation guide and tools to determine how to collect information. Obudsman Crean concluded that taking the risk of an evaluation helps an Ombudsman office to create the basis for concrete improvements. It also fosters communication between stakeholders and eventually enhances the legitimacy of the entire Ombudsman institution as such.
More than 80 representatives of Ombudsman offices, civil society national and international organizations and the academia attended this webinar. Participants from Europe, Africa, North America as well as the Caribbean and Latin America actively followed the webinar and took the opportunity to join the interactive dialogue of a “Question & Answer” session after each presentation. The session was recorded and will be made available to all IOI members on the IOI website and through the IOI newsletter in due time. For more information on the presentations, please see the documents below.
