Ministerial Ombudsmen as a mechanic to reduce costs

@andrewlepine So would these overseers (for want of a better word) come from the ranks of government backbench MPs, or opposition backbench MPs? If it's the former, they would very rarely exercise the kind of keen discretion that you are envisaging, due to party loyalties, and if the latter, you are essentially making elections meaningless because the party that wins has no ability to enact its policy without the permission of the opposition.

Also, far from reducing inefficiency, these overseers, in order to function credibly, would need their own independent staff of researchers, advisors, auditors and policy experts - leading to substantial extra costs.

@hugheldredgrigg You seem to be assuming they would operate like a judge in a court, that each decision they make sets a precedent for the following ones. I am proposing a mechanic whereby a minister or ombudsman or overseer has the ability to enact a solution that is better/faster/more efficient than the current structure allows. It is more a method of sidestepping beauracracy than overriding policy. The key is individual circumstances, dealing with porblems at a situational level rather than a policy one.
Electorate MP's seem logical point of contact for people as they are their geographical point of contact mfor Govt

I understand that they're not judges, but to be able to second guess the decisions of ministers they're going to need an equivalent number of staff to ministers - they can't rely on the same analyses ministers use, because then they wouldn't be making independent decisions, and they can't just make decisions themselves without any research, because then the quality of decision making would be very low and they might well end up overruling effective policies because they don't have the support to determine effectiveness. Whether or not they set a precedent doesn't affect their support needs.

And electorate MPs, list MPs or some mix, there's still the question of what their party affiliations are, which is going to probably be a major determinant of what their decisions are. Government MPs would be extremely reluctant to overturn the decisions of government ministers, while opposition MPs might be too eager - and would, as I said, arguably be compromising democracy.

@hugheldredgrigg The situation you describe would be an extreme case I believe, in almost all instances what I'm proposing deals with functionaries in govt depts rather than decisions any minister has direct dealings with. And remember these functionaries are probably doing their jobs correctly. It's just that in doing so they are creating wasted work/time/money for the Govt. Not to mention the person(s) involved. I can only repeat as I said above this mechanic does not change existing policy but rather provide a solution when the policy fails (or even just could do better) a particular situation. The majority of the time I envisage it would be a few phone calls by the minister/ombudsman to establish they had all the relevant facts then one the Minister in best position to deal with the solution.

I hear where your coming from in a democracy everybody should be treated the same, but also in a democracy (or any other system FTM) everybody's circumstances are different. Some Govt flexibility could turn an can/can't into a win/win in a lot of instances.