Financial Review Debate — Office of the Ombudsmen

This is one of the most disturbing parts of this financial review process. The report of the Government Administration Committee into the Office of the Ombudsmen during 2010-11 is something that we should all be concerned about. The Ombudsman came to the Government Administration Committee and said that her office was in crisis. A budget established for a workload of 800 to 1,000 cases was now dealing with 1,600 to 1,800 cases, there were 1,854 live cases on hand, and 300 cases had not been assigned to an investigator because of the workload. As the Ombudsman herself said, justice delayed is justice denied.

The Ombudsman went on to talk about concerns over staff well-being. The report of the Government Administration Committee notes that the office said it was worried about staff sickness, high rates of serious illness, and staff placed on stress leave. The Ombudsman’s office noted that it would like to reward its staff better and to recruit additional investigators, but it did not have the funding to do so. These are among the most serious issues that could be raised in this process.

The Office of the Ombudsmen plays a critical role in our democracy. It is one of the pillars of our democracy by ensuring accountability, by ensuring that New Zealanders can have trust and faith in the systems of government, and that they have a place to go when other options have run out. Many New Zealanders will associate the Ombudsman’s office mainly with the Official Information Act, but it also has an important role in determining how other Government agencies operate, in particular around the Department of Corrections. It is simply unacceptable for the Ombudsman’s office to have got into this state.

We do need to note that the Officers of Parliament Committee has allocated additional funding to the Ombudsman’s office, and that is something that is to be welcomed, but it is still well short of the $1 million extra that Beverley Wakem told the Government Administration Committee she needed to ensure that her office could operate in the way that most New Zealanders would want it to do. There is little more important in our democracy than knowing that an office like the Ombudsman’s office can operate without having to concern itself with staff who are simply unable to work because of the levels of stress that they are operating under.

It was John Armstrong in the New Zealand Herald who asked the question: “is National now benefiting from delays in the Ombudsmen ruling on cases taken against ministers who block requests under the Official Information Act?”. That is the serious concern. Many members of this House will have Official Information Act requests dating back months, if not years. I have one that goes back to May 2010, and the Ombudsman’s office comes back to me and says it simply does not have the resources to investigate these cases at this time.

This is a crisis, as Beverley Wakem said. Additional funding of $300,000 from the Officers of Parliament Committee will go some way to addressing the staff remuneration issues and the staff retention issues, but it will not reach the heart of the problem that we have here, that an institution of Government that is charged with ensuring transparency, and ensuring accountability is being starved of funding to the extent that the Ombudsman would come to a select committee and say her office was in crisis. That is something that members on the other side of the Chamber should take very, very seriously indeed.

It is not just about MPs or media wanting their Official Information Act requests fulfilled. It is about whether Government agencies are treating people fairly, and we have a huge number of cases emanating from the Christchurch and Canterbury earthquakes that are coming towards the Ombudsman’s office, and some that are already there, and they are held up in this backlog as well. The Ombudsman’s office itself acknowledged that further public sector reforms would add more to the backlog.

We need an assurance from this Government that it will fund an institution like this properly. We have seen too many examples of issues like conflict of interest, cronyism, and other issues from this Government that are not being properly addressed. We need the Ombudsman’s office to be in a position to undertake the kinds of inquiries that give New Zealanders confidence that the system of government we have is transparent and accountable. I cannot stress more how seriously we take this and how much this office needs to be supported.

I cannot let those issues go unanswered, because under our constitutional arrangements it is not the Government that determines the funding for the Office of the Ombudsmen; the recommendations are made by the Officers of Parliament Committee, which includes members from all sides of this House. I chair the Officers of Parliament Committee and, as for all agencies of the Crown, there is an expectation that all agencies will operate with the utmost efficiency. Just because agencies or departments seek extra funding does not mean to say that they should be allocated extra funding. I think I have told this House previously, for example, that I run the Speaker’s office on less than half the funding of my predecessor—less than half.

The Office of the Ombudsmen has been allocated additional funding to deal with an increase in complaints. The Ombudsman’s office was allocated on a temporary basis $370,000 to help the office cope with the increase in complaints. It was not made permanent, because there was no certainty that the increase in complaints would be ongoing. The Officers of Parliament Committee is now satisfied that that increase in complaints with events like the Canterbury earthquake is likely to be ongoing for the foreseeable future, and so that temporary additional funding of $370,000 has been recommended by the Officers of Parliament Committee to be made permanent to give the Ombudsman’s office the certainty of that. In addition to that, all the additional funding requested by the Ombudsman’s office has been recommended by the Officers of Parliament Committee to be allocated in this next financial year, and that is the $300,000 that the honourable member Grant Robertson was referring to.

So I want the House to understand that it is not the Government that on its own determines the funding of the Ombudsman; it is the Officers of Parliament Committee, which comprises members from all sides of this House. That committee has listened to the representations of the Ombudsman and has accepted that there is a seemingly permanent increase in the level of inquiry required by the Ombudsman’s office at present. What is more, there have been additional functions allocated to the Office of the Ombudsmen, and those have been funded. There have been funding allocations made to meet those additional functions required.

I just want the House to understand that the current situation is that in this next financial year, in terms of all the requests made by the Ombudsman, the recommendations have been met by the Officers of Parliament Committee.

Report noted.

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet