Today, we publish our Strategic Plan 2023-2026: A new chapter

As the new Ombudsman, Michelle Morris, took the post in April last year, she launched the work of defining the new set of priorities for her time in office.

We looked at a wide range of evidence – our casework trends, equality monitoring, and stakeholder opinion research. We also consulted internally and put the proposed Strategic Plan to external consultation.

This evidence pointed to some opportunities but also challenges facing our office.

The number of complaints reaching our office increases year on year. Some diverse communities do not know about us as well as they should and rarely complain to us. Like all public sector organisations in Wales, we also face economic challenges and must adjust to new, flexible ways of working.

To address these and other challenges and have a meaningful and lasting impact we must adopt new ways of working and try new solutions.

Our new Plan states clearly that our ambition is to ensure that

• people of Wales feel that public services treat them fairly and respond when things go wrong.
• Welsh public services listen to individuals and use their complaints to learn and improve.
• Welsh local government is trusted to deliver the highest standards of conduct.
• the office itself continues to be an influential and respected voice in public service improvement.

We will realise these ambitions by pursuing four Strategic Aims:

• Delivering justice with a positive impact for people and public services
• Increasing accessibility and inclusion
• Expanding our proactive improvement work
• Ensuring that we are a healthy, efficient and accountable organisation.

We know that we need to do more to demonstrate how we are making a difference. This is why for each of our new Aims we explain how we will know that our work has had positive impact on people and public services in Wales, and what evidence we will look at to measure success.

If we are to have a lasting positive impact on the people, public services and local government in the new post-pandemic Wales, business as usual is not an option. This Plan represents the beginning of a new chapter in our service to the people of Wales.

To read the Plan, go here.

Or learn more about our Plan from this short video!