© Sven Dillen
The Federal Ombudsman opened a record number of files last year. At the end of 2023, the counter stood at 10,195 files, of which 7,383 were complaints and 2,812 were requests for information. A quarter of the complaints were about the energy premiums that the government introduced to dampen the increased bills for gas and electricity.
Source: BELGA
Wednesday, April 24, 2024 at 8:11 AM
The Federal Ombudsman investigates citizen complaints about federal administrations. According to the annual report presented on Wednesday, he passed the milestone of 10,000 files for the first time last year. The number of complaints increases year after year. In five years, the Federal Ombudsman handled 45 percent more complaints.
The annual report points to the successive crises as the cause. For example, the corona crisis brought a wave of complaints about unemployment benefits. The war situations and humanitarian crises put pressure on the asylum and migration services and caused an increase in complaints about asylum and migration, while the energy premiums that the government introduced to keep energy bills affordable led to more than 1,700 complaints.
The Federal Ombudsman was able to find a solution in 75 percent of the complaints. In general, citizens contacted him most often with complaints that they had to wait too long for an answer or a decision. This was the case in 44 percent of the complaints handled.
Whistleblower files also increased sharply in 2023 due to an expansion of the powers of the federal Ombudsman. He handled 293 whistleblower files. Of these, 62 files concerned suspected integrity violations (fraud, cronyism, abuse, etc.) in the federal government services and 209 files concerned violations of legislation in the private sector. The Ombudsman opened 22 protection files in 2023.
Trust in government
It is not so much the number of complaints that worries the Ombudsman, but rather the reasons for the complaints. He emphasizes that trust in the government is of great importance for our democracy. But citizens are in danger of losing that trust. In recent years, citizens have faced many challenges. They sought guidance from the government, but for some administrations it was also becoming increasingly difficult to provide a high-quality service due to the high workload and new challenges.
To strengthen trust, the Ombudsman therefore puts forward a number of points for attention. The government must be able to keep promises made. “The Federal Ombudsman can understand the difficult and urgent situations in which administrations have had to work due to successive crises. But citizens should not be victims of this.”
The government must also make its digital applications safe and user-friendly. In addition, the government itself must be able to correct its mistakes. A strong first line “is therefore worth gold in a good relationship of trust between citizens and government,” the annual report states. And finally, the government must communicate openly and be transparent. “Citizens can really understand if they know why something is not going as well or they have to wait longer,” the Ombudsman believes.
