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Annual Report of the Ombudsman 2008 (text version)

3.4.1 Reaching out to people - Raising Awareness

Communications is a vital part of my work as Ombudsman. This embraces publicising what the Office does for people and the service we provide through public speaking engagements and appearances: It also means alerting people and the media of investigations with significant outcomes and the beneficial changes brought about across the public service. Above all, it means communicating the message that we are here to help those people who feel that they have been treated unfairly by public bodies.

As Ombudsman, I appreciate that reaching out to such people is at the heart of our business. As well as the general population, I am conscious of the need to reach out to the most vulnerable and least protected people in the community, many of whom find the informal, user–friendly and free service that my Office provides, particularly suited to their needs. There are a variety of ways we can publicise and create awareness about our independent and impartial service, both for potential complainants and for people in the voluntary sector or non-governmental organisations who can refer complainants to us. Opportunities to do so present, through media events, our outreach programme and easily accessible and understandable information literature. To complement this, my Office undertook a number of initiatives in 2008 which are described beneath.

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