Complaint and correspondence tracking mechanisms should be put in place. Financial monitoring must be undertaken to ensure maximum efficiency. As with other public sector bodies, the efficiency of operations of the minority ombudsman institution will be important. Efficiency has a number of aspects. First, as noted earlier, the institution may have a limited budget, and this will mean that all resources, including human resources, are stretched and may, in some cases, be insufficient to discharge the functions as effectively as would be desirable. It is therefore essential that the institution have good cost accounting and control mechanisms that will be able to identify not only financial and resource costs, but also use of time by staff. Only in this way can expenditures be controlled, potential overspends identified, and more efficient time allocation and management implemented. A second aspect is the efficiency with which tasks of the institution are performed. It is important, for example, that complaints be handled expeditiously and that investigations are performed thoroughly, but also in a timely fashion. Case files should be monitored carefully, ideally by some sort of electronic tracking system, and where legislation imposes deadlines for events to take place, a diary system should be instituted. Enquiries should be dealt with quickly, and correspondence should be handled efficiently and accurately, again with a tracking system. PART III Efficiency Given that the work of a minority ombudsman institution will tend to generate a considerable amount of paper and a range of outputs, efficient file management and data storage and retrieval systems should be developed. Investigations should be referenced in a number of ways, including by the type of complaint, the identity and nature of complainant, the identity and nature of the public body being investigated, and so forth. 61