Who knows the office of the public ombudsman? a study about its image as perceived by Florianópolis citizens

• Autor(a) principal: Santos, Aline Regina
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: Costa, Jane Iara Pereira da, Burger, Fabrício, Borja, Guilherme Régis de
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Cadernos Gestão Pública e Cidadania (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.fgv.br/cgpc/article/view/66025
• topic: The Office of the Public Ombudsman; image; citizen; perception; complaint.; Defensoría del pueblo; imagen; ciudadano; percepcíon; reclamación.; Ouvidoria pública; imagem; cidadão; percepção; reclamação.

Public Ombudsman’s Offices are organizations that act as interlocutors between citizens and public agencies. They are normally used when citizens need to make a complain, a suggestion or to request information. In Brazil, they became popular in the late 1990’s, boosted by the managerial movement in public administration. According to data from the Office of the Ombudsman General (OGU), in 2014 there were 285 Public Ombudsmen linked to the federal executive branch. However, despite its expansion and relevance, there is scarce research on this field, particularly with citizens as research subjects. Therefore, our purpose in the present study was to investigate citizens’ knowledge about the Office of the Public Ombudsman, as well its image as perceived by them. To that end, we conducted a survey with 400 people in central Florianópolis, SC. Among respondents, 71% said they did not know what a Public Ombudsman was. In the analysis procedure, the chi-square test confirmed the presence of statistically significant differences, particularly regarding professional occupation and knowledge about Public Ombudsman’s existence. For those who knew the Public Ombudsman's Office, it was mainly associated to the terms "complaint" and "listening to the citizen". We found a predominance of neutral and positive associations to the Public Ombudsman’s image, showing a good reputation. Among its possible contributions is easy contact with public agencies, improvement in public service quality and ease in demanding rights.