The Office of the Ombudsman is in "crisis", says the Chief Ombudsman.
Beverley Wakem says the public watchdog has a bulging backlog of cases because it lacks investigators, with underpaid staff leaving and in some cases literally being worked to death.
Appearing before Parliament's government administration committee, Ms Wakem said the office, which investigates complaints from the public stemming from their dealings with central and local government, was under "considerable pressure" in terms of staffing and funding and had been for the past three years.
She said the office's baseline funding had been established on the basis it would be actively working on 800 to 1000 cases at any one time.
At present it was dealing with about double that. The office had about 300 cases it was unable to work on because of a lack of available investigators.