All but a handful of the 189 cases concluded by the Ombudsman in 2018 were addressed by the public administration within the same year, according to a report published by Principal Permanent Secretary Mario Cutajar.

“This is a clean bill of health for the public service,” Mr Cutajar said on Wednesday.

In 2018, three out of every five complaints submitted to the Ombudsman and the Commissioners for Health, Education and the Environment were deemed to merit further investigation. This translates to 246 out of the 383 complaints filed.

There were no instances of any breach of law, policy or abuse of power by the public administration.- Mario Cutajar

Mr Cutajar said that 97 percent of the 189 cases that were concluded had been addressed by the public service and the complaint was deemed either unjustified or else the Ombudsman’s recommendations were implemented.

In four out of every five closed cases  (80 percent), no recommendations were necessary, meaning a 10 percent improvement on 2017.

Moreover, the Principal Permanent Secretary added that there had been no instances of any breach of law, policy or abuse of power by the public administration.

As for the 75 cases that were still pending, 22 were being considered at ministerial level, of which 12 were related to health.

In the rest of the cases action was being taken by the public administration to evaluate the Ombudsman’s recommendations.