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Speaker 1: Insight into our view of the public sector. The Ombudsman

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Speaker 1: annual report shows a record eighty one hundred and sixty

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Speaker 1: three official information at complaints, that is a thirty percent increase.

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Speaker 1: They also got two hundred and seventy eight protected disclosures

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Speaker 1: under the whistleblower law. That's up twenty six percent. John

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Speaker 1: Allen is the Chief Hombardsman, is with us. John Morning, Morning,

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Speaker 1: Mike La. I'm very well. Indeed, you haven't been in

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Speaker 1: the job long, have you no?

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Speaker 2: About six months? Now?

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Speaker 1: Is it fun?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? It is fun. It's an extraordinary role to be

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Speaker 2: able to cast your eye over four thousand government agencies,

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Speaker 2: to be able to engage with the community around the

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Speaker 2: things that are concerning them, in how they are dealing

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Speaker 2: with those agencies, in being able to find a way

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Speaker 2: to create improvements in the processes.

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Speaker 1: What's led to the increase?

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Speaker 2: I think a few things first, As you know, I mean,

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Speaker 2: public confidence in government generally is declining. People are under

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Speaker 2: a huge amount of pressure as a consequence of cost

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Speaker 2: of living, in housing and tealth and all of those

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Speaker 2: sorts of things that we talk about all the time.

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Speaker 2: And the ombitement jurisdictions are really interesting. One because it's

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Speaker 2: free to the complainant, because it's independent of government, because

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Speaker 2: it's private, and because the process is inquisitorial, not adversarial,

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Speaker 2: which is the way the courts manage these things. So

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Speaker 2: it's a pretty attractive vehicle to be able to raise

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Speaker 2: concerns that you have with the state if you're an individual.

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Speaker 1: Is the term attractive vehicle a nice way of saying

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Speaker 1: a bunch of bored, lazy no hopers have got nothing

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Speaker 1: better to do with their time. But moan.

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Speaker 2: No, I don't think that at all. If you look

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Speaker 2: at the substance of the complaints that we are getting.

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Speaker 2: These are people who have genuine issues and genuine concerns,

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Speaker 2: and as a consequence of the complaints that they are making,

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Speaker 2: we are able to both identify areas of improvement in

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Speaker 2: many cases and also look to systemic changes across the

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Speaker 2: entire system that benefit everybody.

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Speaker 1: Do you know what percentage of those would lead to

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Speaker 1: what you've just explained? In other words, it was worth

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Speaker 1: complaining about, and here's what's happened because of it.

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Speaker 2: I don't have a percentage that tells.

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Speaker 1: Me that half of them or a few, or I would.

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Speaker 2: Have said it would be maybe half of them my case.

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Speaker 2: So I mean, that's that's a that's a six month

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Speaker 2: observation on the on the things that come across my desk,

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Speaker 2: in which I see, in which I in which I engage.

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Speaker 2: But the reality is that it is a very effective

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Speaker 2: mechanism for actually making change because we can engage with

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Speaker 2: the agencies. We have the human stories from the complainants,

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Speaker 2: so we can we can tell those stories, and we

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Speaker 2: can look across all of the data and across the

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Speaker 2: entire system and say, these issues are coming up time

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Speaker 2: and time again. How do we fix them? Here's our recommendation.

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Speaker 1: How do you explain your clearance rate which is higher

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Speaker 1: than the number of complaints you receive.

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Speaker 2: Ah, we're getting focused on getting things done more quickly.

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Speaker 2: So we've had a bit of a backlog over the

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Speaker 2: little while as a huge number of complaints growth creates

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Speaker 2: that sort of thing. And we're really now focused on

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Speaker 2: getting timely reports out because if they're not timely, they're

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Speaker 2: not going to be useful to drive change.

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Speaker 1: Now, I note in reading the report that you credited Bowsher,

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Speaker 1: of course, and that was the weirdest rule. Did you

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Speaker 1: know that? I mean, you're a young man, so it

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Speaker 1: doesn't apply to you, but you've got to retire at

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Speaker 1: the age of seventy two or I mean, who invented

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Speaker 1: that rule? I'd complained about that. In fact, I might

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Speaker 1: write to you and complain about it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, I mean for those of us who

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Speaker 2: are sort of, you know, seventy two adjacent, it becomes

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Speaker 2: it's a bit of an issue, isn't it her? And

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Speaker 2: it does seem a pretty odd a pretty odd requirement

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Speaker 2: in the current world.

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Speaker 1: Exactly nice to talk to John Allen, who's a very

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Speaker 1: nice bloke who these days is the chief undbudsman. And

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Speaker 1: I know he's a very nice bloke because I did

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Speaker 1: a couple of things with them when he was the

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Speaker 1: head of New Zealand post years ago, and very very entertaining.

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Speaker 2: He seemed to be intimating there that you were seventy

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Speaker 2: two adjacent, did you know what?

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Speaker 1: I don't know what he was sing those of us.

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Speaker 1: He said that in a way he might be one

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Speaker 1: of those guys who looks a lot younger than he

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Speaker 1: actually is, because i'd have him I'm guessing late fifties,

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Speaker 1: early sixties, possibly at a push, so I'm maybe he's

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Speaker 1: maybe he's maybe it's been maybe when I worked with him,

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Speaker 1: it was like fifty years ago, and we're all kids,

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Speaker 1: and I've completely lost my mind. For more from the

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Speaker 1: Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks I'd be

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