OMBUD COUNCIL ANNUAL REPORT 2024/25

PART B: PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

4.3 STRATEGY TO OVERCOME AREAS OF UNDERPERFORMANCE The Ombud Council’s proposals to address under-performance in relation to the deviations indicated in the Tables above are as set out in the applicable column in the Tables. 4.4 LINKING PERFORMANCE TO BUDGETS The Ombud Council has met 13 of 15 (87%) of the outputs targeted on our APP for the 2024/25 financial year and has spent 86% of the total expenditure budgeted for the two programmes.

Table 5: Budget Expenditure

2024/25

2023/24

(OVER)/ UNDER EXPENDITURE

(OVER)/ UNDER EXPENDITURE

ACTUAL EXPENDITURE

ACTUAL EXPENDITURE

PROGRAMME

BUDGET

BUDGET

Administration

17,038,261

13,928,315

3,109,946

15,647,000

8,463,759

7,183,242

Regulation and Oversight

9,946,971

9,319,358

627,613

7,279,000

1,407,507

5,871,494

Total expenditure

26,985,232

23,247,673

3,737,559

22,926,000

9,871,266

13,054,736

100%

86%

14%

100%

43%

57%

The main reason for the underspend is savings on employee costs due to vacant positions that were filled later in the financial year than anticipated, and significant savings on consulting fees due to finalising the procurement process for budgeted Board secretariat services at the end of the year. In addition to the budgeted expenditure in the Table above, the National Treasury granted approval late in the financial year for the Ombud Council to retain the 2023/24 accumulated surplus of R13.8 million on consumer education and awareness projects. However, due to time and resource constraints in planning and procuring services for appropriate projects, coupled with the use of savings in the 2024/25 year, the approved cash surpluses where not utilised by year end. Subject to approval by the Board, the Council expects to apply to retain the cash surpluses accumulated as at 31 March 2025 for planned consumer education projects.

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OMBUD COUNCIL ANNUAL REPORT 2024/25