Integrate Ombudsman

[wombleton]

On the UK site, requesters do have an ability to submit an "internal review". However this goes to the agency and not to the Information Commissioner (the equivalent judicial officer to the New Zealand Ombudsman). WhatDoTheyKnow.com states with some ambiguity that that site does not integrate with the Information Commissioner's complaints process (https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/unhappy).

The benefits of integrating with the NZ Office of the Ombudsman are:
Greater access to the Ombudsman's decisions. Currently there are no 2012 or 2013 decisions in the Ombudsman's case notes catalogue at http://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/resources-and-publications/liberty. In fact, not many cases have been published to their site since 2003. Adding decisions to FYI.org.nz would begin to rectify this.
the entire lifecycle of the request would be visible. At the moment, the request, the agency's decision, (and annotations) are visible. However if the requester is dissatisfied, their complaint to the Ombudsman is not included on FYI.org.nz. Adding the Ombudsman would help fill the gap in the chain.
enhanced public understanding of the Ombudsman's position (view) as to whether information of a particular kind should be released. At the present time, only requesters know what the Ombudsman's view is, unless the requester manually adds an annotation to the request thread. Enhanced understanding would assist others to rely on and refer agencies to the Ombudsman's views when contemplating or writing their requests.
The extent of correspondence from the Ombudsman that FYI.org.nz may be expected to store, manage, and publish would be as follows, in order of receipt:
a letter acknowledging receipt of the complaint, and an accompany flowchart of the steps in the complaints process;
a formal provisional view (which allows time for the request and the agency to give and further submissions in support or against the provisional view); and
a final decision.
Currently, the above are all sent in hard copy to requesters (I am confirming this).

I accept that:
adding this functionality would require a little bit of work
consultation should be undertaken with the Ombudsman's office as to how happy they are with the proposal, including canvassing whether they have any concerns or issues (such as technical or relating to the release of their decisions)
there could be potential privacy issues. For example, requesters' physical addresses may appear on letters. Though if the Ombudsman's correspondence was sent via email, then this may not be the case.
A short-term, or long-term, solution could be to add a file uploader button to allow requesters to manually upload a file (e.g. PDF file) of the Ombudsman's decisions.