Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass has said the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages is “on notice” following a spike in complaints over the past three years.
The Ombudsman’s investigation, released today in Melbourne, revealed a dramatic increase in complaints, with more than 100 cases experiencing serious delays.
Ms Glass said staffing has been identified as “only one of many issues” facing the Registry.
Reductions in staffing, “non-existent” complaints handling services and a tendency to “react” to situations without proper training are only “some” of the problems facing the Registry.
“[The Registry] needs to look hard at their systems and procedures,” Ms Glass said today at RMIT University.
Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass reveals the findings of the investigation
Similar thoughts were echoed by Chief Investigator, Sarah Jones.
“You could have 150 staff - if processes aren’t right it won’t work. It’s an inefficient system,” she said.
Ms Glass labeled the findings of the report to be “very concerning and a key reason why [the] report ended up in Parliament”.
One case involved a grieving mother who had to contact the Registry more than twenty times to attain accurate birth and death certificates for her children.
Ms Glass said she was also “alarmed” by the Registry’s decision to remove the reference to the Ombudsman from their website.
“[I was] not very impressed by that,” Ms Glass said.
“The only way you’re going to get improvement in the public administration is if the agency itself embraces the change”.
The Registry have acknowledged and accepted the Ombudsman’s recommendations.
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