Neil Sands
As befits a former diplomat, newly installed Chief Ombudsman John Allen is a firm believer in working through a process to find negotiated solutions.
For that reason, don’t expect the Ombudsman’s office to issue angry missives about the shortcomings of the public service – Allen is more likely to engage with officials and use the mana of his position to address a problem.
“That doesn’t mean that we won’t call out behaviour from time to time when appropriate. It doesn’t mean we won’t do reports that identify specific concerns at a point in time, but it does mean that the agencies need to be able to see their circumstances reflected in our reports,” he told LawNews.
Allan began his career as a lawyer after graduating from Victoria University of Wellington in 1983, then returned to the university as chancellor almost 30 years later from 2022 until his appointment as Chief Ombudsman earlier this year.
John Allen
In between, he has held a variety of senior public service positions, including serving as chief executive of MFAT, NZ Post and the NZ Racing Board.
The experience has given Allen an understanding of the challenges facing the public service.
He favours a collaborative approach to solving problems, rejecting suggestions the Ombudsman’s office should have the power to impose penalties for persistent issues such as missing Official Information Act (OIA) deadlines.
“My initial view is not supportive of penalties. The reason for that is that there’s something unique about this jurisdiction,” he said. “This jurisdiction is not a court. This jurisdiction is not legalistic. This jurisdiction is free to the complainants, albeit the taxpayer is picking up the tab.
“It’s inquisitorial, not adversarial… it’s independent of government. All of those attributes create a unique avenue for a lot of people in our society who otherwise would not be able to get access to an independent deliberation on their particular concerns in their dealings with the state.
“So, in my view, we have to be very, very careful when we start moving to penalties… we rely on the mana of this office to deliver change. That has worked well for this country and we should be careful about moves to make us more like a court, with particular penalty provisions.”
OIA ‘working well’
Allen’s predecessor Peter Boshier raised concerns before retiring from the role about a poor culture of OIA compliance among bureaucrats that was undermining the transparency the legislation aims to foster.
Allen said he had found senior public servants were committed to making the OIA work.
“Overall, the system is working quite well, that is my experience in my engagement with chief executives,” he said
“I’ve had a lot of engagement with chief executives across the state service. I don’t think there is any lack of commitment to the principles of the legislation. I don’t think there is any lack of recognition that by providing access to information, we built public trust and confidence in democratic process.
“So, I don’t see fundamental problems with the process. That’s not to say that there aren’t frustrations… [or] behaviours that we’re going to need to keep calling out from time to time. But in my view, the legislation is broadly appropriate and has worked effectively for this country for many years.”
Among his career highlights, Allen cited helping gain New Zealand a place on the UN Security Council in 2015–16 and the establishment of Kiwibank in 2001.
He said he wanted to bring new ideas to the role to build on the achievements of Boshier and his other predecessors.
“In the end, what this role is all about is looking at a set of facts and making judgments.
“It’s about whether the behaviour of agencies is reasonable or unreasonable, and I think that requires some lived experience. It requires some scar tissue. It requires you to have made some mistakes as well as to have achieved some things.”
0 Comments