In 2004-05 the Ombudsman found agency error or deficiency in 14 per cent of the complaint issues it investigated. In 2005-06 the figure was 1 per cent.
Agencies had not improved fourteenfold in a year. The Office had changed its rule. From 2005-06 a finding of administrative deficiency was recorded "only after a rigorous internal process, involving sign-off at the Senior Assistant Ombudsman level or above, and some contact with the agency".
A year later the Office acknowledged the effect. A new policy, it wrote, "can lead in the early days to fewer findings of administrative deficiency being recorded than is probably warranted", partly because of "occasional resistance by agencies" and partly from "the reluctance of Ombudsman staff to record such a finding".
The rate recovered to 10 per cent by 2008-09, slid to 3 per cent in 2011-12, and then stopped being published.
Sources: Annual Reports 2005-06 pp 23-24; 2006-07 p 43; 2008-09 p 15; 2011-12 p 41.