Voting Membership

As defined in COFO Charter Section 4.03, “Voting Members are the primary governing body of the Coalition.  Voting membership shall be composed of ombuds (full and part-time) working as current Federal employees. Members must practice according to the values cited above [in Charter Section 3.01] when performing ombuds duties, and nominees for the Executive Committee must be from the Voting Membership.”

Charter Section 3.01 reads as follows: “Properly structured federal ombuds share three core standards of practice: independence, confidentiality and impartiality.  These are considered essential to the ombuds profession. Many if not most also share common definitional characteristics—informality (does not make decisions binding on the agency or provide formal rights-based processes for redress), a commitment to credible practices and procedures, and a commitment to fairness.”