• You are here:
• Home /
• Publications /
• Guidelines /
• The Ombudsman's Guide to Standards of Best Practice for Public Servants

The Ombudsman's Guide to Standards of Best Practice for Public Servants

The Ombudsman's Guide to Standards of Best Practice for Public Servants 

Public bodies should strive for the highest standards of administration in their dealings with people. Public servants should see it as their duty to deal with people properly, fairly, openly and impartially. The following checklist, although not exhaustive, is a guide to standards of best practice for public servants. As Ombudsman, I hope public servants will find it useful  in their efforts to provide a better service to their clients.

Dealing "properly" with people means dealing with them –

• promptly, without undue delay; and in compliance with published time limits;
• correctly, in compliance with the law or other rules governing clients’ entitlements and published quality standards;
• sensitively and by giving reasonable assistance, having regard to people’s age, to their capacity to understand often complex rules, to any disability they may have and to their feelings, privacy and convenience;
• helpfully, by simplifying procedures, forms and information on entitlements and services, maintaining proper records, and providing clear and exact details on time limits or conditions which might result in disqualification;
• carefully, where more than one public body is concerned, by ensuring proper and effective communications between the bodies to prevent a person's needs being overlooked and to avoid a situation where a person is “caught in the middle”;
• courteously, including communicating in Irish where it is clear a person wishes to do so. This can also mean communicating with a person in their national language, if from another jurisdiction.
• responsibly, by not adopting an adversarial approach as a matter of course where there may be a fear of litigation and by being prepared to explain why an adverse decision may have been given.

Dealing "fairly" with people means  -

• treating people in similar circumstances in like manner;
• accepting that rules and regulations, while important in ensuring fairness, should not be applied so rigidly or inflexibly as to create inequity;
• avoiding penalties which are out of proportion to what is necessary to ensure compliance with the rules;
• being prepared to review rules and procedures and change them if necessary;
• giving adequate notice before changing rules in a way which adversely affects a person's entitlements;
• having an internal review system so that adverse decisions can be looked at again and reviewed by someone not involved in the first decision;
• informing people as to how they can appeal, co-operating fully in any such appeal and being open to proposals for redress, including apologies, explanations and payment of compensation;
• making appropriate redress, where possible, which puts the person back into the position he/she would have been in if the public body had acted properly in the first place.
• adopting a policy for dealing with the small number of people who act in a vexatious manner or in bad faith, which strikes a balance between the interests of the public body, its staff and the person concerned.

Dealing "openly" with people means -

• putting people in contact with the officials of the public body with responsibility for dealing with them or their representatives and, if appropriate, referring them to alternative sources of information.
• making available and keeping up to date, comprehensive information on the rules and practices which govern public schemes and programmes;
• giving people full information on the reasons for a decision which adversely affects them including details of any findings of fact made in the course of the decision;
• ensuring people know what information is available, where to get it and know of their right to access it in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, 1997 and otherwise;
• assisting people, where necessary, to prepare their requests for access to information;
• providing accessible public offices and using information and communications technologies to ensure maximum access and choice in service delivery.

Finally, dealing "impartially" with people means -

• making decisions based on what is relevant in the rules and law and ignoring what is irrelevant;
• avoiding bias because of a person's gender, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, religious belief, age, disability, race, membership of the Travelling Community, language, attitude or reputation or because of who they are or who they know;
• ensuring, where a service is based on a scheme of priorities, that the scheme is open and transparent;
• being careful that one's prejudices are not factors in a decision;
• declining any involvement with a decision where one has a conflict of interests, a potential conflict of interests, or where there may be a perceived conflict of interests.

Published by

Office of the Ombudsman

18 Lower Leeson Street

Dublin 2

Tel: Lo-call 1890 22 30 30   (for the price of a local call)

Tel: +353 1 639 5600

Fax: +353 1 639 5674

Email: ombudsman@ombudsman.gov.ie

Web: www.ombudsman.ie

Our purpose is to help raise public service standards. Individuals, businesses or organisations who feel they have been unfairly treated can make complaints to the Ombudsman. Our service is free. We aim to ensure that people are treated with dignity, respect and sensitivity when dealing with the public service. We will make every effort to deal with your complaint properly, fairly and impartially.

  Download - The Ombudsman's Guide to Standards of Best Practice for Public Servants - English version (pdf, 28 kb)
A downloadable version of the Guide is available below. The files are in PDF format, and Adobe Acrobat is required to read them.