Our people
As a casework organisation, our people have shared professional values , a wide range of skills and life experiences, and a commitment to the work we do. We work together in a positive and collaborative way to deliver the best service we can across all areas of our work as an ombuds service.
In 2025 we continued to grow our organisation. For the first time, we increased to consistently over 100 (headcount) employees. With continuing increases in our staffing, as well as in the number of complaints coming to us, we have managed key aspects of our work effectively.
In our recruitment, we maintained a strong focus on skills and continued to use our Applied recruitment system, which uses anonymised applications and structured, skill-based assessments to identify the best candidates for a role.
“This has genuinely been the most enjoyable application process I’ve experienced and I mean that sincerely. It was refreshingly pain-free, (no endless notifications or rigid portals), and easy to engage with. I’m currently applying regularly, and this process stood out as exceptionally pleasant and thoughtfully designed… I only wish more organisations approached hiring like this, it would make the process far less daunting and much more human.”
“As well as feeling that you are engaging in a fair and balanced process, it also gives a sense of what the hiring manager is looking for in a candidate and the community and ethos of the company.”
“Thank you so much for getting back to me and for providing such thoughtful and detailed feedback. I truly appreciate the time the team took to review my application. As a point of feedback, this is by far one of the most comprehensive and constructive responses I’ve received. It means a lot.”
Learning and development
We continued to work towards a culture of continuous and intentional learning; focusing on how we embed our learning and prioritise what is most important; aligning learning with our strategic priorities, reviewing future skill requirements, and continuing to listen to feedback from our people.
Our work in 2025 focused on prioritisation of our learning and development activity, setting out our approach to embed competency frameworks across our organisation and introducing personal development planning.
We introduced new learning pillars that the majority of our learning and development activity will fall under, to support intentional prioritisation and, most importantly, ensure what we learn and skills we develop can be practised and embedded in our day-to-day work, enabling delivery of our strategy.
We continue to progress with planning and delivery of learning programmes under our pillars in 2026; most notably leadership development, equality, diversity and inclusion, and change management, as well as continuing to hone and develop skills and capabilities connected to our Scheme development, such as under-18 safeguarding.
We initiated workshops with our colleagues on what is important to them when embedding competency frameworks and discussed the value we want to derive from such frameworks, ahead of implementation across the organisation in 2026.
Employee voice
We continued to strengthen how we listen to and act on feedback from our people. Our Staff Liaison Committee met regularly through the year, providing a consistent forum for dialogue with team representatives. This year we widened team representatives to include a GMB representative to support open and constructive engagement.
We held various workshops with our people throughout 2025 as part of our wider strategic planning cycle: we have sought to better understand what matters most to colleagues in their work.
We will continue to underpin employee voice with data, using a mix of regular, light-touch feedback mechanisms, and targeted short pulse surveys to help us gather insight, understand impact and inform to continually develop our organisation.
“My role is Governance Officer, working in the Leadership, Governance and Communications team. I really enjoy being in a role where I get to support the Board and help shape big decisions. I support the Board and senior leaders, keep meetings running smoothly, and help make sure our decisions are clear, accountable and in line with best practice. I’ve picked up a mix of skills from being a paralegal, working in the civil service and then moving into an education trust… I wanted to do something that actually feels meaningful, and this role feels like the right fit for my experience and the kind of work I enjoy. It’s the kind of place where I know I can genuinely add value and make a positive difference. I’m also fortunate to work with a great team, and I genuinely enjoy the way we collaborate and support one another.”
Shazia, Governance Officer
“Working within higher education is really important to me. I believe very strongly in the transformative power of higher education, particularly for students from disadvantaged, or under-represented groups. The OIA plays a critical role in protecting the interests of students and so it is a way for me to do work that I am passionate about, and proud of… My role at the OIA is to make well-reasoned and informed decisions, so I genuinely enjoy the whole thing.”
Daniel, Assistant Adjudicator
The Rebecca Marsland Award
The Rebecca Marsland Award was created in 2019 in memory of our former colleague who passed away.
Each year, it is awarded as a celebration of an outstanding contribution to our work, an exceptional personal achievement, or an act of kindness. We invite colleagues to make nominations and the Independent Adjudicator, and the Chief Executive, together with a previous year’s winner of the award, decide on a winner.
This year, we received over 46 nominations, with the award ultimately given to Jim, who is the Case Coordinator for the case-handling teams. Jim was described by colleagues as both “kind” and “one of a kind”, and he received many nominations from colleagues across several teams. Jim was also recognised for his support and guidance to colleagues, drawing on his extensive case-handling expertise, as well as his generosity, humour, and empathy. Congratulations, Jim.
Investing in our infrastructure
Another of our major milestone projects was to relocate our office in the heart of Reading City Centre.
Our relocation to Apex Plaza marked an important step, providing a modern, accessible workspace designed to support how we work now and into the future. The office offers a welcoming environment for colleagues, visitors, and stakeholders, with spaces designed to enable both focused work and greater collaboration across teams during ‘in office’ days.
The work was undertaken at pace by the Operations Team, delivering the project on time and within budget, ensuring a long term home for the OIA in Reading.