This is really a shitshow. The federal ombudsman is simply ignoring complaints – not even giving people a case number or status. Because of that, many complaints are about the fed ombudsman itself, from people asking what’s going on with their complaint.

My question: who is above the federal ombudsman on the food chain?

The fed ombudsman should only be getting complaints about other Belgian federal agencies. So the fact that the fed ombudsman is swamped with over 10,000 complaints means that other federal agencies are failing in their duties at a high rate. From the report:

“That clearly shows that citizens are having difficulties exercising their rights and that they risk losing trust in public service.”

The report also says:

“In 2023, the Federal Ombudsman obtained a positive result in 75%”

Of course that’s only 75% of the ~~44%~~48% it cherry picked to work on. So really only 36% of complaints are getting results. Thus roughly 7000 people were disserviced by a federal agency and could not get a remedy from the federal ombudsman. (edit: of the 48%, 44% are trivial complaints merely about delays; thus apparently only about 15% are getting meaningful results on a significant matter)

Who do we complain to about mismanagement at the federal ombudsman?