Mr. Peter Tyndall:

Thank you, Chairman. I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak to the committee today. I am greatly honoured to be nominated to the position of Ombudsman and Information Commissioner. I wish to pay tribute to the outgoing, former Ombudsman, now European Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, who led the office with distinction for a number of years. She has made it easy for the next incumbent to take on the role.

The role itself is a vitally important one.

It is one of the independent offices of the State which gives citizens and other users of public services the sense there is someone there who can deal with their complaints objectively and independently or who can deal with their requests for information in a way that is fair, transparent and open. The role has been significant in the context of the State and will continue to have that importance. The work of the Office of the Ombudsman is well known in Ireland but the office also has a strong international reputation, providing the next Ombudsman with a great platform from which to develop an even better service in the future.

I should provide some information about myself. Unusually, I am not a journalist. I come to the post as a public service ombudsman and believe I will bring a particular perspective to the role of Ombudsman. I am used to managing and leading a public service ombudsman's service which is well regarded and which has dealt with a much increased demand for its services, a demonstration of the confidence of the people who use the service. In dealing with the greater demand for services, my office also managed to improve its performance. For example, there are no complaints more than a year old to be dealt with in the office. Some 90% of complainants are told within 28 days, and often within two or three days, whether their complaint will be investigated.

This focus on the balance between giving people proper, well thought through objective responses to their questions while at the same time doing so in a way that reflects the scarcity of resources ensures that what resources are deployed are deployed efficiently and effectively. This is part of what I would bring with me to the role of Ombudsman. What I bring to the role also is the fact that although I have a knowledge of public services in Ireland, I have not had any personal engagement in those services. From that point of view, I would bring an objectivity and clarity to the role which I believe would be of considerable assistance.

A large part of my career has been about developing services for people with intellectual disabilities, but also for people from a variety of backgrounds where support is required. This work informs my view of issues. We all use public services to some extent. We pay tax, though we may not think of that as a public service, but we use public services constantly. However, people with support requirements, disabilities and so on rely on public services. Consequently, ensuring there is good, independent, objective scrutiny of any failures of public service is important. This is an important part of my motivation for wanting to take on the role of Ombudsman.

This is an exciting time to take on the role of Ombudsman. The Office of the Ombudsman is well established, but the recent extension of jurisdiction is important because it means the Ombudsman can provide greater coverage. The impending freedom of information legislation will also give greater scope to the role through the widening of the number of bodies included within the jurisdiction and by improving access to information more generally. I relish the opportunity to see those changes through. It is important that the new bodies covered by the legislation understand the role of the office but I believe there will be some trepidation in that regard. People will be concerned in terms of both the Ombudsman Act and freedom of information legislation. It is important people have a good understanding of what the changes will mean and the implications for them. I intend to work with them to help develop that understanding.

One of the fundamental issues for me is that by and large most complaints that come to an ombudsman or information commissioner should not be there. If public bodies handled complaints better, people would not feel the need of the office. Some people, even when they have received a reasonable response, are not satisfied with the outcome. That is fine, but there should be somewhere for them to take their complaints further. The demand for an ombudsman's office will grow significantly in times such as those we are living through currently. Therefore, finding ways of helping public bodies to manage complaints better is important.

One of the areas I would like to explore is the introduction of a standardised, streamlined approach to complaint handling by public bodies, which would give citizens and service users much greater clarity and certainty about what to expect when they make complaints. This would bring complaints to the Ombudsman's office more quickly and the issues would be fresher and more capable of being resolved. This would also reduce the number of complaints. Any ombudsman would say that sometimes when one finds that the subject of the complaint has not been upheld, the complaint handling has been so dreadful that one has to uphold the complaint on that basis alone. This is a particular area I would like to address.

I would also work to improve the performance of the office, the way it deals with people who approach it, provide a prompt, effective and courteous service, ensure people feel they are getting there complaints considered objectively and ensure their requests for information are dealt with properly, efficiently and speedily. There are issues in regard to these issues and I will, therefore,need to look at the issue of performance. This is something I have looked hard at in my current position, making maximum use of information technology to make it easier for people to access the service and to make it easier to manage complaints so that the burden of the office in terms of processing is undertaken, as much as possible, by the IT to enable the investigators spend their time investigating and dealing with members of the public. There are ways of improving processing and performance but I do not see a likely reduction in the volume of complaints or requests for information.

Turning over work quickly is not in itself a measure of performance of an ombudsman's service if the quality of that work is not of a suitable standard. From that perspective, I am anxious to ensure there are arrangements in place to ensure quality. I think there is scope for improving performance and I would like to focus on that. Ultimately, the quality of the examinations, the investigations and the reports produced is what will determine whether people have faith in the service. People may be happy for it to take a little while for them to receive an answer, provided that answer is thorough, deals with all the points raised, is objective and gives them an answer they can understand in terms of the question they asked.

I want to say a little about the core work - about health and social care complaints. I have made it clear that the Ombudsman has two distinct roles as an agenda. The first is the consideration of complaints and the provision of redress for individuals who approach the office or the provision of the information they require. The second role is equally important and it is to ensure that the same mistakes are not constantly repeated and to consider how to get that learning into the system. In my current role, I have made a significant investment in improving public service delivery. Regular case books set out the learning from the office and I know these are used by public bodies as learning materials. These provide regular guidance on handling complaints.

In the case of the larger public bodies, those which generate the greatest volume of complaints, generally health bodies in my case, we have annual meetings and letters which set out the cases that arose during the year, what can be learned from them and try to get assurance this learning is being carried through. When we propose changes and agree an action plan with a body that it will implement in order to avoid a repeat of mistakes, it is essential we follow up on that and get evidence action has been taken and that the action taken has achieved the desired outcome. My fundamental principle is that it is not sufficient to say the consideration of complaints improved services. The improvement of services must be a focus of the work of the office.

That is something I want to bring to the position, as I have done in my current role. I will speak about the relationship with the health service, the HSE and the Department of Health. It seems this has been an area of particular concern and I am sure the committee has had occasion to consider it. I would very much want to make a personal investment in efforts to improve what has become, in my view, a very entrenched relationship. These things are difficult and there is a lot of history attached. I am not that naive to think that all that history can be set aside. On the other hand, a new incumbent in the post marks a fresh start and it should be possible to start to rebuild that relationship so that it is more constructive and so that the findings of the office and its reports are more likely to be accepted and implemented in a spirit of organisational learning which they should be, in my view. Complaints are a source of learning for organisations and provide a way for improvement. That is the way I would like to see it done.

The new FOI provisions will also pose challenges for the new bodies under jurisdiction. Some way of setting out the implications and how the provisions will work will be needed. There is currently a means of communication but much of the engagement between the office and the bodies in jurisdiction focuses on individual requests for information and individual complaints. There needs to be much more generic engagement with the bodies so that there is an opportunity for them, if possible, to prevent the complaints and the requests for review coming to the office in the first instance.

One of the issues of greatest concern both to me and to the committee is that issues will arise when individuals are entitled to a service or to fair treatment and an investigation reveals that they have not received same. It is essential that any ombudsman should be authoritative and that decisions should be on the basis of a very detailed consideration of the evidence and that the recommendation should be seen to put right any wrong that has occurred. I imagine and hope that the relationship with this committee will be fundamental in ensuring that any unresolved issues are taken forward. I would hope to avoid the situation where recommendations are not being upheld. In my current position all my recommendations have been implemented. I realise this is making me a hostage to fortune because that day will come but it is important to emphasise that I come to this position with prior experience and knowledge.

The Office of the Ombudsman in Ireland has a very high profile. People understand that they can bring their complaints but that, in itself, is not sufficient. In my view when people make a first complaint to public bodies or request information it is essential that they are informed of their right to come to the Office of the Ombudsman. For preference, the body in jurisdiction needs an opportunity to be able to respond to the request but the best way of ensuring that people know about access to the services of the Office of the Ombudsman is that they are informed about it when they most need to know, at the point at which they are dissatisfied with either the service or the information provided by a body. I place great importance on ensuring this will happen.

There is a plethora of ways to complain about services. There has been some movement in the piece of work which led to the health complaints website. People should be able to complain in whatever form they wish. For many people that will still be a letter, the completion of a form or by speaking to an official. Equally important, people who want to complain by phone or by website should be able to get access to someone who can tell them how to present a complaint. That should be an accessible and reliable service which will provide information about any body or agency in the State about which a complaint may arise. In my view, the information should be available on bodies both inside and outside jurisdiction. The Office of the Ombudsman should be the source of information for making a complaint and this should be available to everyone using any method of contact. I refer to the Complaints Wales service which is a telephone and web-based service and in my view it is one of the most innovative methods of access anywhere. As more public services are provided by bodies which are not themselves public bodies, it becomes more difficult for people to seek access to justice. The Office of the Ombudsman has a critical role in making it easier for people to do that.

This is a vital role and I would very much relish the opportunity to exercise it.