In their advice to you they didn’t mention I had received a similar excuse when I had asked for the report last December. Your officials said the ombudsman had conducted a preliminary investigation "and concluded the ministry’s decision was appropriate". The Office of the Ombudsman, which has not commented, but has outlined its process, tells me chief ombudsman Peter Boshier indicated in his provisional opinion he was upholding my complaint. In my considerable experience with the ombudsman’s office (often involving your ministry), its advice is not usually hard to understand, even if you might not agree with it. In this instance, the misleading advice involved an ombudsman investigation, albeit not an earth-shattering one.

Source: Otago Daily Times July 16, 2019 23:37 UTC