research within the communities will be more difficult; and education campaigns and other initiatives to diffuse knowledge about both legal standards and remedies will be hampered. The institution must also have the trust of the government and public bodies which it will be scrutinizing: such bodies will be less likely to cooperate in investigations and research activities, and less likely to implement the findings of the institution, where they believe that the institution is biased or not fully competent. Finally, the institution must also have the trust of the wider majority community: public education will be less effective and the decisions of the body will be downplayed or dismissed if the institution is not trusted. The ombudsman institution must be fully accountable and adhere to its formal reporting requirements. The minority ombudsman institution should be fully accountable to parliament, both with respect to its operations and its expenditures: the parliament should know about and be able to make judgements on how well the institution is discharging its statutory and other duties, and on how well it is managing and employing its budget. Indeed, there are likely to be formal reporting requirements to the parliament, and these must be strictly adhered to. PART III Accountability and Transparency The annual report is a good tool to account to parliament and promote the institution. Institutions are generally required by the legislation under which they are created to prepare an annual report, and to place it before parliament and sometimes provide a copy to the executive, but even if this is not statutorily required, it would be good practice to do so. As a minimum, the annual report should contain: a description of the institution’s activities; audited financial statements; a declaration of interests of members of its executive board, as well as those of officers and senior management; a record of attendance at board meetings; a report of investigations undertaken and their outcomes; and a report of any special report or study undertaken. In addition, the annual report, or parts of it, can be used as a valuable education and promotional tool, as was discussed in Part I of this Guide. The outcomes of investigations should be made known to the body being investigated and to the public. As noted in Part I above, the minority ombudsman institution may have a range of investigatory and monitoring functions. To the extent that it undertakes investigations, the outcomes of those investigations should be made known to the body or bodies being investigated promptly, and in situations where the investigation came about as a result of an individual complaint, also to the complainant. Whenever the institution has made a finding or decision, it should provide a full written account of its reasons, and a summary of the facts before it (except where confidentiality, discussed below, requires the protection of information or identities). The wider public will have an interest in such investigations, and therefore the outcomes of investi57