The Ombudsman

The Ombudsman (established under The Ombudsman Ordinance) is the city’s independent watchdog of public administration. The Ombudsman investigates actions by government departments and public bodies for administrative deficiencies and recommends remedial measures to improve the standard of public administration of Hong Kong. Directly responsible to the Chief Executive, the Ombudsman serves as the community’s monitor on government departments and 24 major public bodies specified in a schedule to the ordinance.

The Ombudsman is empowered to investigate complaints of non-compliance with the Code on Access to Information against all government departments, including those that are not listed in this schedule, such as the Hong Kong Police Force and the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Besides investigating complaints, the Ombudsman may initiate direct investigations into matters of public interest and widespread concern, and publish the reports, so as to redress administrative flaws of a systemic nature and address fundamental problems or underlying causes of complaint.

Audit Commission

The Audit Commission, headed by the Director of Audit, is established under the Basic Law, which provides that it shall function independently and be accountable to the Chief Executive. The Audit Ordinance provides for the audit of the government’s accounts by the Director of Audit and for the submission of the director’s report to the President of the Legislative Council. The director also audits the accounts of the Exchange Fund, the Hong Kong Housing Authority, five trading funds and more than 60 other funds. In addition, the director reviews the financial aspects of the operations of the multifarious organizations subsidized by the HK SAR Government.

The director carries out two types of audit: regularity audits and value-for-money audits.