Queensland Ombudsman's Annual Report 2025-26 is now available

The Office of the Queensland Ombudsman’s 2025–2026 Annual Report (annual report) was tabled in Parliament on 7 September 2026.

The Office’s annual report highlights achievements for the financial year ending 30 June 2026. This report assesses the financial and non-financial performance against the objectives and performance indicators set out in the Strategic Plan 2023–27.

The Queensland Ombudsman, Mr Anthony Reilly, said that now the Office is in its 52nd year of helping individuals resolve complaints about government decisions, demand for services continues to grow. 

“In 2025–26, the Office responded to 13,254 contacts, a 7% increase on 2024–25,” Mr Reilly said.

“There was also a 14% increase in the number of finalised complaints.

“The increased demand for our services has placed increased pressure on our capacity to ensure the timeliness of our services.

“Our 1,067 finalised investigations over the course of the year led to 200 recommendations to improve administrative actions of agencies.”

Strategic review

During 2025–26, the sixth strategic review of the Office was conducted. Periodic strategic reviews are required under the Ombudsman Act 2001 (Ombudsman Act). The central purpose is to examine whether the Office is discharging its functions economically, effectively and efficiently. 

“The report, delivered by Professor John McMillan AO, found that the Office has functioned at a high standard and maintained its stature and reputation for fairness,” Mr Reilly said. 

“We welcomed the review and will consider its recommendations in the year ahead.”

Further highlights

The Office published its sixth annual casebook of investigation summaries, Casebook 2026: Helping agencies to improve decision-making, including practical examples of how complaints about administrative decisions and actions were resolved, along with strategies agencies can adopt to avoid similar issues. 

“We also published the second and third reports of our multi-agency investigation undertaken in response to recommendations of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability,” Mr Reilly said.

“Learning from the experiences of Kaleb and Jonathon, the investigation made recommendations for preventing harm to children with disability in Queensland, focusing on the practices and procedures of different agencies.

“In November 2025, we published our report about the Department of Housing and Public Works, and in April 2026 on Queensland Health.”

In addition to responding to complaints, we also offered agencies a range of aids to support the continuous improvement of their administrative processes. To increase the range of training options, in August 2025, the Office released Good Decisions – Essentials, a free online self-paced training module about good decision-making. This was followed by the release in March 2026 of the Public Interest Disclosures – Essentials online module.

Engagement and reach

“We continue our efforts to engage with local councils and community organisations outside of the Brisbane area,” Mr Reilly said. 

“This year, 38% of complaints were brought to us by people from outside south-east Queensland, and 49% of complainants identified as Aboriginal people or Torres Strait Islander people.”

Website traffic continued to grow, with more Queenslanders choosing to access information and lodge complaints online. In 2025–26, our website recorded more than 400,000 visits, a 43% increase on the previous year.

Inspector of Detention Services

“In the third full year of operations as the Inspector of Detention Services, we undertook inspections and published reports about prisons and youth detention centres. We also commenced a review into Maximum Security Units.”

Key publications included:

• November 2025 – Combined inspection report for youth detention centres (of inspections in 2024)
• April 2026 – Brisbane Correctional Centre inspection report
• July 2026 – Capricornia Correctional Centre inspection report
• August 2026 – Combined inspection report for youth detention centres (of inspections in 2025).

Read the full annual report.