News

The Ombudsman Quarterly Review (OQR) for Winter 2021 is out.

In this edition:

Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier is reminding people making requests for official information, and agencies dealing with those requests, to be mindful of the need to act fairly, reasonably, and with understanding, during the latest nationwide COVID-19 lock

Ombudsman New Zealand continues to ensure fairness for all at this time.

The Chief Ombudsman and his staff are working remotely in accordance with Alert Level 4 regulations, and continue to accept complaints and enquiries.

The Chief Ombudsman investigates complaints about managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities but he can’t always step in.

Two mental health inpatient facilities have yielded very different inspection results despite being run by the same District Health Board and being within metres of each other on the same hospital grounds, Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier says.

Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier has recommended Macleans College in Auckland apologise to a student it expelled following an incident involving a teacher in 2019.

The Chief Ombudsman has published a case note on a complaint about a request for information about the names of COVID-19 clusters linked to cases in the Bay of Plenty District.

The Chief Ombudsman has published a new guide today on the OIA’s confidentiality withholding ground.

The OIA says that information must be made available unless there is a good reason not to.

The Chief Ombudsman has published a new guide today on the OIA’s privacy withholding ground.

The OIA says that information must be made available unless there is a good reason not to.

The Inquiries Act 2013 provided a new framework for the conduct of public and government inquiries into matters of public importance.

But there has been some uncertainty about how it interacts with the Official Information Act (OIA).

A case note released today looks into a complaint about Child, Youth and Family, which became Oranga Tamariki – Ministry for Children, removing a five-day-old child from their autistic mother.

The Independent Monitoring Mechanism (IMM) is writing a report about disabled people’s experiences during the COVID-19 emergency.  

The OIA calculator is back online.

Thank you for your patience while we addressed the issues in the previous version.

OIA calculator

We’re helping with research by the University of Newcastle Australia into the benefits of good complaints handling in public sector organisations.