The 2024 Report of the Ombudsman, delivered today to the Portuguese Parliament, follows the structure adopted in recent years, with distinct sections dedicated to cross-cutting issues, a selection of topics analysed throughout the year, and information regarding the Ombudsman’s activity as the National Human Rights Institution. This year, poverty is the cross-cutting theme presented, both as a serious and persistent…

Faced with the persistence of complaints related to delays and difficulties in accessing fundamental support products for people with disabilities or temporary incapacity, the Ombudsman’s Office carried out a study that comprehensively examines SAPA – the System for the Allocation of Support Products. The conclusions of this study, now published in this Thematic Report (link), show that in order to…

Continuing along the lines inaugurated in the previous year, the Ombudsman’s 2023 Activities Report, delivered today to the Portuguese Parliament, gives particular prominence to problems that, across the board and repeatedly, jeopardise the good provision of public services to a wide range of citizens. Following the emphasis given in the previous report to slowness, lack of coordination between services and…

Difficulties related to the service provided by public services have long been the subject of the Ombudsman’s attention. However, the pandemic of 2020 and 2021 and the need to confine the population have profoundly changed existing practices, and, after the health emergency, many doubts and complaints have arisen about how the channels between public services and citizens are being resumed.…

The inability of the State to respond in reasonable time, the deficient articulation between services which hinders decisions and not infrequently generates conflicting decisions, and the unclear communication with interested parties are among the problems that are found across the board in the Public Administration and which seriously compromise the quality of public services. This finding, which stems from very…

The Ombudsman sent a new recommendation to the Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security highlighting the urgency of guaranteeing timely access to the Social Insertion Benefit (PSI) by persons with disabilities. The new recommendation arises from the continuous receipt of complaints that show that the effectiveness of the PSI is not guaranteed, primarily as a result of the delay…

In 2021, a record volume of 12,219 new cases were processed, as a result of a 6% annual increase in the number of complaints admitted. Based on 2017, the beginning of the first mandate of the current Ombudsman, Maria Lúcia Amaral, the accumulated growth in the number of new complaints processed is 57%. A new high of 21 259 requests…

In 2020, activity indicators were once again the highest in the history of the Ombudsman, an independent State body created in 1975 to defend people who feel aggrieved by unfair or illegal acts or omissions of the administration or other public powers or who see their fundamental rights violated. The Ombudsman dealt with a record 11,557 new cases, as a…