Guidelines for organisations

The ACT Ombudsman writes guidelines to support organisations in implementing policies and procedures to meet their responsibilities. These guidelines cover:

  • how to meet FOI and open access obligations
  • how to meet requirements under Reportable Conduct
  • best practice complaint handling.

Freedom of Information Guidelines

The FOI guidelines are designed to help government organisations understand the legislation. You can find our suite of FOI guidelines here.

Reportable conduct and working with children

The suite of reportable conduct practice guides we have developed help explain the Reportable Conduct Scheme in the ACT. The guides form part of our Reportable Conduct Resource Kit. The guides, along with the rest of the resource kit, are available here.

Advice regarding managing complaints made by children is also available in the Complaint Handling Guide: Upholding the rights of children and young people published by the National Office for Child Safety.

Complaint-handling

The Commonwealth Ombudsman has published the following best practice guidelines on complaint handling:

Better practice guide to complaint handling

This guide defines the essential principles for effective complaint-handling. It is a tool to assist agencies in developing and evaluating their complaint handling systems. 
View guideline

Better practice guide to managing unreasonable complainant conduct

This manual is designed to help organisations be consistent when interacting with complainants. It provides strategies to assist all staff members. The guide focuses on unreasonable complainants. 
View guideline