Fairness in Administration

How can you ensure your organization delivers its programs and services fairly?

You can do this by building fairness into your policies and programs to support fairness in decision making and service delivery. Programs should be evaluated regularly to ensure the presence of fairness standards.

Although we all may have an instinctive sense of what fairness is, it can be a difficult concept to define. There are often different views of the requirements of fairness as well. In collaboration with ombud offices across Canada, we have created guidance with supporting tools to help public bodies build fairness into their practices.

Manitoba Ombudsman uses these standards to assess whether administrative fairness and natural justice prevailed in a decision or action taken by a public body. We focus on the three aspects of fairness shown in the fairness triangle below: fair processes, fair decisions, and fair services.

Depiction of the fairness triangle which has decision on the right, service on the bottom and process on the left, forming a triangle shape.

There are fairness standards to guide public bodies within each aspect of the fairness triangle.

These standards include:

Fair Process

1. Participation

Notice
Process information
Opportunity to be heard
Opportunity to appeal
Reasons for decisions
Communication
Timeliness

2. Integrity and impartiality

Decision free from personal interest, preference, or prejudice
Review by independent decision maker
Conflict of interest protections
High ethical and professional standards
Code of conduct policies

Fair Decision

3. Just and lawful

Consistent with law and policy
Not arbitrary, but logical and understandable
Not oppressive or unreasonable
Not improperly discriminatory
No unreasonable impediments to access

4. Equitable

Decisions based on complete and relevant information
Consider specific circumstances
Each case decided on its merits
Appropriate exercise of discretion

Fair Service

5. Accessibility

Accurate information, publicly available
Online and printed formats
Use plain language
Incorporate accommodation standards
Make access to your organization easy to a diverse range of people
Culturally safe and inclusive spaces

6. People-centered

Timely, accurate and respectful service
Fair consideration of people’s needs and circumstances
Appropriate privacy protection

7. Accountability and continuous improvement

Robust, accessible complaints process
Know who is responsible for handling and responding to complaints
Culture of quality review
Continuous service improvement

Assessment

Fairness assessment requires a critical examination of existing and proposed systems and policies, taking steps where needed to improve processes to ensure they are administratively fair. This includes assessing whether your organization is meeting fairness obligations set out in your governing legislation, provincial ombudsman legislation, administrative law fairness principles, and also meeting broader societal fairness standards.

Why your organization should do a fairness assessment:

Demonstrates a commitment to fairness, which can increase public confidence
Supports fair decision making and service delivery
Gives your employees confidence they are treating the public fairly
May reduce complaints, improve stakeholder satisfaction and improve staff morale
May enable your public body to resolve issues more quickly and efficiently, saving time and money