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Annual Report of the Ombudsman 2004

Chapter 4 - Case Management

Case Management

We completed 2,090 cases in 2004 and dealt with 8,774 enquiries. In terms of case numbers, our main focus in 2004 was to reduce the number of cases on hand. While all cases on hand are active, setting targets does help to ensure constant attention to early completion times and a disciplined approach to case management.

The year opened with 814 cases on hand, of which 167 were open for more than 52 weeks and at year end, 788 cases were on hand, of which 173 were open for more than 52 weeks. The outturn fell somewhat short of the targets of 755 and 135 cases, respectively. There were some outstanding results against targets in some sections of the Office and while all staff worked very hard to achieve the targets, the overall shortfall arose mainly due to unavoidable delays in filling some vacancies and other temporary shortages in staff resources.

Throughout 2004 we continued to sample individual complaint files by reference to a set of agreed quality indicators (e.g., time taken to acknowledge a complaint, keeping the complainant informed of progress, communicating clearly and simply etc.). A group of caseworkers with an independent chair, known as the Review Group on Case Quality was established. It reports to the Management Advisory Committee on the extent to which the quality indicators have been met in individual complaint files sampled.

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