Community Services Complaints

What types of Community Service complaints can the Ombudsman help with?

The Ombudsman can consider complaints about:

• The Department of Communities and Justice, or DCJ.
• Non-Government services for children and young people that are funded by DCJ, including foster care, Intensive Therapeutic Care (ITC), and some early intervention services.
• Specialist homelessness services funded by DCJ such as family support services, domestic violence services and carer advocacy services.

Who can complain to the Ombudsman?

Any person can contact the Ombudsman to make a complaint about a service provided or funded by the Department of Communities and Justice.

Before making a complaint to the Ombudsman, it is best to talk directly to the service provider to try to resolve your concerns.

What kinds of Community Service complaints does the Ombudsman receive?

Some examples of who complains to us and the kinds of complaints we receive include:

Young people

• I recently left care and I don’t know what support I’m entitled to receive.
• I don’t feel safe in my placement and my caseworker is not listening to me

Parents

• I don’t understand what I need to do to comply with DCJ’s safety plan.
• DCJ are not responding to my complaints about my caseworker.
• My child is in foster care and is not being supported to maintain contact with his family and culture.

Child protection reporters

• I made Helpline reports but they are not being assessed or acted on.

Foster carers

• I’m not getting the support and training I need.

Clients of homelessness or refuge services

• I’m concerned about my safety and my concerns have been ignored.
• I’ve been told to leave the service and I don’t know why.

What can the Ombudsman do with my complaint?

Help you complain to the agency

If you have not yet done so, the investigation officer may encourage you to talk directly to the service provider about your complaint.

We can advise you about how to do this and what to say.

The service provider will often work with you to solve the problem without you having to lodge a complaint with us.

Assess your complaint

We will assess the information you give us and decide what action, if any, we will take. If we decide not to take action on your complaint, we will tell you why we made that decision and help you find the right agency to complain to.

Make inquiries

We may ask the agency or service provider to provide us with information about what has happened and what they have done to resolve the complaint. We can make suggestions to the agency or service about this.

Refer your complaint to the service provider for local resolution or investigation

We ask the service provider to sort out the problem with you and to report back to us about the solution and outcome.

You can contact us again if you are not satisfied with what the service provider does as a result of your complaint.

Investigate your complaint

Sometimes, when the problem is not resolved or we think the problem is very serious, we can start a formal investigation. This can be a long process, and we would keep you informed about progress. From our investigation we can make findings and recommendations to the service or agency.

Call us on 9286 1000  or 1800 451 524 (outside Sydney Metro)
Appointments by prior arrangement only

Please follow us:

How to contact us

Business Hours: Monday to Friday,  
9am–5pm (Inquiries section closes at 4pm)

Please call us first to ensure your complaint is within our jurisdiction and our staff are available to see you.

Level 24, 580 George Street
Sydney NSW 2000

Email info@ombo.nsw.gov.au

General inquiries 02 9286 1000
Toll free (outside Sydney metro) 1800 451 524
National Relay Service 133 677

Telephone Interpreter Service (TIS): 131 450
We can arrange an interpreter through TIS or you can contact TIS yourself before speaking to us.

© State of New South Wales, January 2020.
This publication is released under a Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0.