About Us
About me and my team
My name is Peter Tyndall and as Public Services Ombudsman for Wales I have legal powers to look into complaints about public services in Wales. I also investigate complaints that members of local government bodies have broken their authority's code of conduct. I am independent of all government bodies.
I have a team of people who help me to consider and investigate complaints. The service that we provide is impartial and free of charge.
The vision, values, purposes and strategic aims that we have set for our service are set out below.
Our vision
To contribute to the development of excellent public services in Wales by ensuring that service providers continue to value and learn from complaints
Our values
Accessibility - to be open to everyone from all our communities and work to ensure that people who face challenges in access are not excluded. We will be courteous, respectful and approachable, and communicate with complainants in the way they tell us they prefer.
Excellence - to be professional and authoritative in all that we do and promote excellence in the services with which we work.
Learning - we believe that we should improve through learning from our own experiences and should help others to learn from theirs.
Fairness - we will maintain our independence and reach decisions objectively having carefully considered the facts.
Effectiveness - we will make sure that we use resources to secure best value for the public purse.
Being good employers - we will continue to invest in our well trained and well motivated staff.
Our purposes
- To consider complaints about public bodies.
- To consider complaints that members of local authorities have broken the code of conduct.
- To put things right - we aim to put people back in the position they would have been in if they had not suffered an injustice, and work to secure the best possible outcome where injustice has occurred.
- To recognise and share good practice.
- To work with public bodies so that lessons from our investigations are learnt.
- To ensure continued improvement in the standards of public services in Wales by helping bodies to get it right first time - we will work to reduce complaints by helping service providers to improve their initial decision making.
Strategic aims
Strategic Aim 1: To raise awareness of our service so that people understand what we do, and that all who need it can access it and make use of it.
Strategic Aim 2: To have in place high quality complaints handling processes, which consider and determine complaints thoroughly but proportionately, and convey decisions clearly.
Strategic Aim 3: To work with public bodies in Wales so that better quality public services are provided as a result of the lessons that can be learnt from the complaints we investigate.
Strategic Aim 4: To demonstrate that our resources are efficiently and effectively deployed.