ENG-2001 — Page 66

CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATION

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The Ombudsman is directly responsible to the Chief Executive. She serves as the community's watchdog to ensure that bureaucratic constraints do not interfere with administrative fairness; public authorities are readily accessible to the public; abuse of power is prevented; wrongs are righted; facts are pointed out when public officers are unjustly accused; human rights are protected; and the public sector continues to improve quality, transparency and efficiency. The Ombudsman has jurisdiction over practically all government departments except the Hong Kong Police Force with its own separate body to deal with complaints from the public. For similar reasons, the Independent Commission Against Corruption does not come within The Ombudsman's purview. However, 17 other major public organisations do; they are: the Airport Authority, Employees Retraining Board, Equal Opportunities Commission, Hong Kong Arts Development Council, Hong Kong Examinations Authority, Hong Kong Housing Authority, Hong Kong Housing Society, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Hong Kong Sports Development Board, Hospital Authority, Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation, Legislative Council Secretariat, Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority, Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, Securities and Futures Commission, Urban Renewal Authority and the Vocational Training Council.

Apart from investigating complaints, The Ombudsman can initiate direct investigations of her own volition and may publish investigation reports of public interest. By adopting a proactive and preventive approach, these direct investigations. aim at addressing problems that may affect a wide cross-section of the community. They are useful in redressing administrative flaws of a systemic nature and preventing future similar complaints by addressing fundamental problems or other underlying causes for complaint. Since 1994, a total of 32 direct investigations have been completed three of them in 2001. These three direct investigations concerned the following subjects: the management of government crematoria; the procedures for immigration control of persons who are found at, or returned to, immigration check points without proof of identity; and the procedures for handling travellers suspected of using false or otherwise suspect travel documents.

Six direct investigations were under way: the management of construction projects by the Housing Authority and the Housing Department; the administrative arrangements for Hong Kong Certificate of Education and A-level Examinations; the anti-smoking enforcement mechanism; the Secondary School Places Allocation and Relief mechanism; the Hospital Authority's practices for dealing with missing patients; and the funding of sports programmes and activities by the Hong Kong Sports Development Board.

The reports of all direct investigations completed are available for public scrutiny at the Office's Resource Centre.

The Ombudsman Ordinance also empowers The Ombudsman to investigate complaints of non-compliance with the Code on Access to Information against government departments, including the Hong Kong Police Force and the Independent Commission Against Corruption. The Ombudsman serves as a common independent review body for alleged breaches of the code.

The Office received 13 138 enquiries and 4 024 complaints in 2001, compared with 10819 enquiries and 3 346 complaints in 2000. The areas that attracted substantial numbers of complaints were related to error, wrong advice/decision, disparity in treatment, negligence or omission, delay, lack of response to