It got worse.
As an ombudsman, part of your role is to advise the minister and seek guidance on files that cannot be solved at the lower level. You have to go to the minister with issues, and sadly, a few of them are at the end of their life. If you can't get to the minister and if you get shut down, the doors are closed. Someone on staff can refuse the ombudsman a meeting with the minister, and it happened consistently after that episode.
Not only did the pattern stay the way it was in that it was lather, rinse and repeat, which I witnessed for four and a half years, but it got progressively worse after that.