Ombudsman confirms increasing complaints against CIG
(CNS): Sharon Roulstone, the first ombudsman in the Cayman Islands who is a Caymanian, told MPs on Wednesday about the many challenges her office is dealing with as the workload is growing due in no small part to the increasing complaints about the government. Roustone was appearing before the first ever public meeting of the parliamentary select committee that oversees the Office of the Ombudsman (OMB).
The Ombudsman Committee was asking Roulstone and her full team about the 2023 OMB Annual Report, which documented a 50% increase in enquiries over the previous years.
Committee Chairman Bernie Bush said that the 2024 report, which is expected to be released to parliament after the elections, shows an even greater increase, as he noted the importance of the OMB’s work allowing people an avenue of redress when they have been wronged by the government.
As she explained the multiple roles of her office, from dealing with freedom of information appeals to handling police complaints, Roulstone said that the office is impartial and does not take sides. They hear from both sides in all cases before making a ruling based on the law. “No one is above the law,” she said.
Roulstone also rebutted recent social media allegations that her office is contracting people in the UK to do the work. She said that “nothing could be further from the truth”, and despite mounting complaints from the public about the government, such as data protection leaks, abuse of office and maladministration, the small team of investigators does all of the work here in the Cayman Islands.
With a record-breaking level of complaints and data breaches, the office had its busiest year ever and managed to resolve around 100 complaints against the government, another 40 against the police and some 192 data protection issues.
As she answered questions from the committee about some of the cases that the office handled in 2023, the resolutions and recommendations made and the follow-ups the office continues to make on those recommendations, the ombudsman also spoke about the future and ensuring that her successor would also be a Caymanian.
Roulstone explained that over time, the government has become increasingly more cooperative with her office as public servants recognise that the OMB, while fiercely independent, is not the enemy but can help them better serve the public and improve their systems.
Confident that training is now on track to ensure that will be the case, Roulstone revealed the challenges she faced when taking over the role. She said her predecessor had run the office in silos with staff segregated by the specific work, so there was no crossover between those working on government complaints or those tackling whistleblower cases or data protection.
She said that “internal forces were working against her” and she had to fight hard to create an office where all the staff learned the different elements. Otherwise, it would have been hard for any one member of the team to emerge as a potential replacement.
While Roulstone did not elaborate on where the internal opposition to her plans was coming from, committee member Chris Saunders implied it was the previous governor, Martyn Roper. “Once you survive former governor Roper, you can survive anything,” he said in response to Roulstone’s comments about the challenge she had reshaping the office.
“I wish the people who dealt with him and know what he was really like would have the courage to speak up and tell people, basically, that he meant this island no good, contrary to the smiles and everything else. You won’t say it, and that’s fine… but I can only imagine what you, being a public servant, would have ensured,” Saunders said, adding that his battles were like “water off a duck’s back. And he’s gone, and I’m still here.”
According to some of the case summaries in the report, during 2023, the office received complaints about a wide cross-section of government departments. Many of them were very specific to the individuals’ experiences, but in some cases, the complaints had much wider implications for the whole community.
In one case, a whistleblower exposed the fact that Customs and Border Control, which has one of the biggest databases on the island and holds significant amounts of personal information about individuals and businesses, had no proper controls for tracking who is accessing the data.
The OMB found that CBC was not able to log or audit any user’s query “footprint”, and users’ access to its computer records was not obvious. The office recommended that CBC implement the necessary function as soon as possible and develop policies and procedures to track user queries in the system.
“Issues identified in our report present significant risks to the CBC as long as they continue. Those risks include potential violation of the Data Protection Act, 2021 Revision (DPA) if unauthorised users access personal information for unintended purposes or in the event CBC does not have appropriate organisational or technical measures in place to protect any personal data that is contained in its IT systems,” the report stated.
While some of the recommendations have been met, several are currently in progress. The OMB has said it will continue to monitor CBC’s progress on the issue, with more details expected in the 2024 report later this year.
See the public meeting on CIGTV below and read the report in the CNS Library.
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Category: Government oversight, Politics, Private Sector Oversight
Big salaries little or no impact on our government or society just another bureaucratic obstacle to stopping corruption in this UK territory.Vote Wisely Caymanians!
Does this include the multitude of police complaints?!
Release the report now. Clear and simple. Release the report BEFORE the election.
Chris Saunders does nothing but defer and throw fits when he’s being held accountable for unprofessional behavior. I believe Mr Panton tried to do good but the swamp was too thick to drain
8:27am. How could he restrain a mad bull in a China Shop?
*Ombudsperson
Come on now, it’s 2025 FFS.
Take your woke ass back to 2024
Cayperson Islands?
Buds = Guys
It is a Swedish word. stop with the ignorant woke nonsense.
We look Swedish to you? Try hush, Inga.
Each government entity has its own FOI person. If you are not getting answers, maybe you are sending your questions to the wrong place…
Sharon is perfect for the Ombudsman position because she is fair and will not bend to political pressure.
As for Saunders, if his battles with Roper were like “water off a duck’s back”, why does he talk about it every chance he gets?
If she wasn’t Caymanian she would never be in that job. Fact.
If there were any affirming cause to believe that the public’s FOI requests would be entertained, they would triple in the short term. There are far too many career bureaucrats that can’t be fired, and don’t want their feathers to be ruffled doing work, even if that’s the simple act of answering reasonable questions from those paying them.
URGENT MISSIVE TO HIS MOST ESTEEMED EXCELLENCY, THE AMBASSADOR OF ABSURDISTAN
Subject: THE END TIMES ARE UPON US! ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY THREATEN THE SACRED ORDER!
Your Excellency,
It is with trembling hands and a heart heavy with existential dread that I pen this missive, for calamity has befallen our sacred bastion of bureaucratic obfuscation! The people—oh, the misguided masses—have dared to demand accountability from the Cayman Islands Government (CIG)!
Worse still, they utter a word so vile, so anathema to the hallowed traditions of Absurdistani governance that I can scarcely bring myself to write it… TRANSPARENCY! (May the great Pastafarian Noodle Monster smite them with an overcooked spaghetti tsunami for their heresy! Al dente be His name!)
The Ombudsman—curse her diligence and most foul dedication to public service!—has confirmed an alarming 50% increase in complaints against the CIG.
In a true affront to the sacred traditions of buck-passing and delay tactics, nearly 100 complaints have been filed against government departments, 40 against the police, and 192 against data protection failures (which, I hasten to add, are not failures but alternative interpretations of security).
Your Excellency, the walls are closing in! The complaints come in waves, crashing against the fragile levees of bureaucratic incompetence. The people have begun to notice that the mechanisms of government exist not to serve but to perplex, confuse, and discourage.
They cry out against inefficiency, data breaches, abuses of office—blasphemers, all of them! Do they not know that we have a time-honored system of doing absolutely nothing until a consultant arrives to validate our inaction?
And yet, the Ombudsman, that relentless inquisitor of reason, continues her crusade. She seeks resolutions! She insists upon local investigations! She demands that agencies acknowledge their errors!
The sheer audacity! Does she not comprehend the peril? If one complaint is resolved, others may expect the same! It is a slippery slope, Your Excellency—today, a minor procedural correction; tomorrow, actual efficiency!
Even the Judicial and Legal Services Commission, once a shining example of dignified torpor, has been caught in the storm!
The Ombudsman found them guilty of maladministration for failing to update their procedures in line with constitutional changes. Their response? “We are working on it.” Ha! The traditional mantra of bureaucrats facing scrutiny! And yet, I fear it may not be enough to pacify the unruly mob.
Your Excellency, I implore you: send reinforcements! Dispatch the finest Absurdistani spin doctors!
Unleash the emergency subcommittee to draft a response so meandering that it lulls the people back into complacency! If all else fails, we must deploy the ultimate weapon: a meaningless public consultation that leads nowhere!
For now, I retreat into the archives, where I shall bury myself in procedural loopholes and pray for divine intervention.
May the great Pastafarian Noodle Monster shield us from the coming reckoning!
Yours in desperation,
The Secretary to the Ambassador of Absurdistan
Please give us a break (permanently) from your exercises in obscuring serious issues.
It’s the exact opposite. The serious issues are highlighted perfectly here albeit in jocular fashion. If you can’t see that then you’re also part of the obfuscation.
GRAVE AND PERSPICACIOUS RESPONSE FROM HIS GRACE, THE DUKE OF COMMON SENSE, FIRST OF HIS NAME, DEFENDER OF CLARITY, SMITER OF NEEDLESS WORDS
Dearest and most excessively loquacious Secretary to the Ambassador of Absurdistan,
It is with a sigh most profound and an eye-roll most theatrical that I, His Grace, The Duke of Common Sense, must respectfully yet emphatically DECLARE: You could have said all of that in three sentences.
For what is this veritable tsunami of syllables, this grand cyclone of circuitous verbosity, this Shakespearean soliloquy of bureaucratic wailing and gnashing of teeth? I have traversed ancient tomes of legalese, deciphered arcane tax codes, and yet—never have I witnessed such a gratuitous outpouring of overwritten hullabaloo.
ALAS! A grievous infraction against the sacred art of conciseness has been committed! Had you possessed but a modicum of restraint, this could have been penned thusly:
“People are complaining because the government is inefficient. The Ombudsman is investigating. We must now scramble to protect our incompetence.”
AND LO! With that single paragraph, I have conveyed in mere seconds what you, in your zeal for hyperbolic legalese, have taken seventy-five excruciatingly ornate clauses to articulate.
Indeed, your dispatch drips with sweat from the brow of a man who has written himself into a bureaucratic labyrinth, yet forgets where the exit is. One cannot help but pity the quill that was so thoroughly exhausted in the process.
Thus, as both act of mercy and commandment from my most exalted office, I must insist—nay, I must DEMAND—that you immediately vacate the premises of Absurdistan’s Ministry of Overcomplication and proceed forthwith unto the nearest grassy field!
For you, noble Secretary, are in dire need of grounding. The wind of reason calls to you, yet you remain shackled to the tempest of overwrought nonsense. Heed my decree, lest you become lost forever in the bureaucracy of your own making.
With all the benevolence my station allows,
Executor of Concise Thought, Arbiter of Rationality, Guardian of the Realm of Sanity 
His Grace, The Duke of Common Sense
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Data breach how is that going ??? In light of the recent verdict will their be an appeal or will it continue going on behind the scene or shall we be left with doubt as we have seen nothing to relieve the fears of the public from OMB to stop or correct this abuse of power and police corruption.
Breach of Data Protection Act by Elections Office….and Omsbudsmans Office is asleep.
Elections office has to follow the law. Get your MP’s to make the many recommended changes.
why is anybody surprised considering the staggering levels of incompetence within cig and the civil service?
excuse the political incorrectness…but civil service is a social welfare work placement programme for poorly educated locals who are unable to get real jobs in the private sector…
if we can’t face facts we will never find the solution.
I don’t like anything that is spoken in absolutes. Why? Because the world, our experiences, our lives is NEVER 100% of anything.
So. I hear your frustration. Consider that you may be partially correct, however I’m sure if you give it a proper think, you’ll grudgingly admit — if only to yourself — that there are several well educated professionals in Civil Service that could probably get a job nearly anywhere. Now to address the deeper level of your assertations: To achieve a Civil Service job is to grab the golden ticket, the brass ring, the golden net, because unless you profoundly and repeatedly screw up, you are guaranteed excellent health care, great benefits, a good salary, and a great retirement with health care in tow.
I think CS employees SHOULD have all those things, however the private sector seems to pay the huge costs for health care, and in doing so, they cover the costs of the government. Why would CIG EVER want to change that? If they had a fondness for fairness, and equity, they would nationalise CINICO, and yes, CS employees might pay a bit more, however more Caymanians would be well covered instead of partially, and we would all benefit economically. I believe this needs to happen to ensure our children’s future welfare on these three formerly humble islands.
I have explained the same many times, @Mumbichi. Claiming that the majority of the Civil Service is uneducated unemployable in the private sector is simply a statement based on deep disdain and resentment. It is not a truthful statement. Many civil servants hold college and university degrees; they arrive early and stay late and are willing to step outside of their job description if they believe it will affect change. It is not their fault that the laws that govern the civil and public service are old and in dire need of updating for the 21st Century — an undertaking that only the Governor can champion?
Wayne Panton admitted this back in 2023:
“Premier Wayne Panton has said the civil service headcount cannot continue to grow… Panton said that the government must move away from “social hiring””
https://caymannewsservice.com/2023/09/premier-says-civil-service-must-stop-growing
Great work, copy and paster government hater!
11:03
You think the Ombudsman Auditor General RCIPS WORC CBC fire service has social employment. Tell us where these persons are.
CNS: I encourage you to make an FOI request for all contracts since Sharon started.
CNS: If you think this is worth doing, you can make the FOI yourself and you can do so anonymously by email. Just create an address that doesn’t identify you.
I think this comment is perhaps to indicate that the Ombudsman may have hinged on a slim technicality in her statement to avoid outright lying.
Plenty of irony about her talking about being unable to address instances of bullying in the civil service as well. Worth digging a bit deeper on that topic.
I guess the question is, will CNS write a story about the foreign contracts if they do indeed exist?
Rumour is that Sharon has hired a new deputy from the UK…so much for succession planning…her other deputy is also not Caymanian.
CNS: Yes, if you find proof that they exist, we will do the story. But all we have right now is the assertion by an anonymous commenter that they exist (rumour) and the stated denial by the head of the office at a parliamentary select committee meeting with no reason not to believe her.
That’s All well and good Sharon Roulstone and the ombudsmen Office can give all these wonderful statistics .but the real truth is complaints go absolutely no where. And when they do get to court as in the recent matter where you had corrupt people tipping off defendants who then get off after breaching and abusing their position for personal gain and even going as far them showing of force in the court makes this a total Farce dear ! Cayman our place is lost and their system loves to punish those who complain against their corruption and criminal behavior and those who hold power where abusers are now Victims ! Spare us the spiel If you can’t afford justice here now you will not get it Caymanians a fact we all know to be the cold hard truth. It has become so terrible that people now call a talk show host to seek both redress and justice now rather that some rubbish government bureaucracy who bogs you down in some inconvenient process rather than help you seek justice!
They are not responding to Freedom of Information requests so where is the recourse???
Elections are April 30th and the public can’t get answers!
I’m sure Martyn enjoyed his interactions with Chris.
The internal resistance was simply that her predecessor and Governor did not want her as Ombudsman. This was based on her unfortunate performance at WORC. Apart from making excuses for 90mins with her entire staff sat beside her there was little substance in any of her answers.
What was her performance at WORC, please?
Abysmal.
Its call waffling and it appears she has had PHD in it!
And she kept asking Brent Fuller to answer.
Well that’s a waste of time.
The ombudsman committee being headed by Bernie Bush? we’re through the looking glass, for sure!