In the reporting year, the Office received a total of 4,934 complaints and 8,851 enquiries; after excluding 140 repetitive complaints, it was left with 4,794 normal complaints. The Office received 4,659 normal complaints (excluding 25,155 repetitive complaints) and 7,505 enquiries in 2020/21.

Including complaints that were not processed the year before, the Office handled 5,032 complaints, of which 2,739 were followed up with and resolved. Among those, 206 were related to COVID-19. That included the approval of subsidies, quarantine arrangements and documents, and disruptions to public services.

The remaining 2,293 were closed due to a lack of grounds to pursue the complaint (51.1%) or jurisdictional or legal restrictions (48.9%).

Throughout the year, the Office conducted 92 full investigations into complaints about maladministration, of which 49 cases were concluded to be attributed to the Departments and Organizations flaws or other inadequacies found.

While among the 2,432 inquiry cases concluded, inadequacies were found in 399 cases.

During the year, the Office made a total of 139 recommendations upon completion of its investigations. A total of 95 percent were accepted by the organizations for implementation.

Regarding the mediation cases, 215 out of 217 were successfully mediated and it took an average of 13.4 days to conclude a complaint by way of mediation. Over 54 percent and 92 percent were resolved within 10 days and less than one month respectively.

"Our Office continues to adapt its operation to the new normal under the impacts of COVID-19. With enhanced IT capacity, we have mitigated the impact of special work arrangements on our output, maintaining our accessibility and responsiveness to the public," Ombudsman Winnie Chiu Wai-yin said.