About us
4
NSW Ombudsman Annual Report
|
2011–2012
Who we are and what we do
The NSW Ombudsman is an independent and impartial watchdog established by the
Ombudsman Act 1974.
We are independent of the government of the day and accountable
to the public through Parliament itself. Our central goal is to keep government agencies and
some non-government organisations accountable by promoting good administrative conduct,
fair decision-making and high standards of service delivery, and protect the rights of people in
NSW. We are responsible for keeping the following types of organisations under scrutiny:
Organisations delivering public services
In 2011-2012 there was 5679 complaints about Government Departments and Authorities.
Considering these high numbers of complaints the Ombudsman would be aware of the systemic corrupt conduct .
Instead of exposing this , the NSW Ombudsman protected this conduct.
This is clearly why there was so much corruption in NSW under the Labor Government first led by Carr who is presently the Foreign minister and then a number of forgettable premiers ending with the skanky American born Kristina Keneally
In 2011-2012 there was 5679 complaints about Government Departments and Authorities.
Considering these high numbers of complaints the Ombudsman would be aware of the systemic corrupt conduct .
Instead of exposing this , the NSW Ombudsman protected this conduct.
This is clearly why there was so much corruption in NSW under the Labor Government first led by Carr who is presently the Foreign minister and then a number of forgettable premiers ending with the skanky American born Kristina Keneally
Managing the organisation
11
Facts & figures
This is a summary of some of our work for the year. It
does not represent everything we have done, but it does
show the high number of matters we handle. Detailed
information about the various areas of work is included in
the other chapters of this
report.
This year we received 33,353
complaints and
notifications
across our
jurisdiction. As figure 1 shows, this included
9,504 formal matters and 23,849 informal matters.
Formal and informal are terms we use to categorise our
work. Formal matters are usually written
complaints and
notifications. This can include written
complaints about
agencies or organisations that are within our
jurisdiction,
but the complaint is about conduct that is not.
Informal matters are our telephone calls,
visits to our
office and inquiries our
staff deal with when they working
in the
community. The informal number also includes
those written
complaints made to our office that are about
organisations that are not within our
jurisdiction. When
we receive these contacts, we refer the person to the
appropriate agency or body.
We are contacted by a diverse range of people, including
members of the public, families of those who are receiving
community services, Members of Parliament,
staff
from
public sector agencies and certain private sector
organisations and journalists.
Handling formal and informal matters is only part of
our work. Figure 5 outlines some of our proactive and
systemic work for 2011–2012. More information can be
found throughout the
report.
Fig. 1:
Complaints and
notifications we received in 2011–2012
Subject area
Formal
Informal
Total
Departments and authorities
1,737
3,942
5,679
Local government
925
1,954
2,879
Correctional centres and
Justice Health
993
3,584
4,577
Juvenile justice
92
205
297
Child and family services
450
900
1,350
Disability services
158
193
351
Other
community services
33
101
134
Employment-related
child protection
1,221
543
1,764
Police
3,386
2,361
5,747
Outside our
jurisdiction
509
6,991
7, 5 0 0
Requests for information
0
3,075
3,075
Total
9,504
23,849
33,353
Fig. 2:
Formal
complaints and
notifications finalised
Subject area
07/08
08/09
09/10
10/11
11/12
Departments and authorities
1,354
1,310
1,414
1,382
1,778
Local government
788
672
875
924
933
Custodial services and
Justice Health
918
714
722
898
1,003
Juvenile justice
11
73
62
78
91
Human services agencies (
Housing NSW,
NSW Health)*
N/A
N/A
N/A
386
N/A
Freedom of Information**
197
224
136
89
N/A
Community services
737
704
720
716
641
Employment-related
child protection
1,921
1,715
1,483
1,304
988
Police
3,254
3,094
3,093
3,278
3,390
Agency outside our
jurisdiction
364
397
276
430
502
Total
9,544
8,903
8,781
9,485
9,326
*
We
reported this number separately in 2010-2011 to reflect a structural
change within the office. These matters are now included as
part of the departments and authorities figure.
**
Our office is no longer responsible for freedom of information matters. These are now handled by the Information and Privacy
Commissioner.
Facts and figures
•
several hundred NSW
public sector agencies including
departments, statutory authorities, boards, correctional
centres, universities and area health services
•
the
NSW Police Force
•
over 160 local and county councils
•
certain private sector organisations and individuals
providing privatised public services.
How we keep them accountable
We investigate and resolve:
•
complaints about the work of
public sector agencies
•
complaints about the merits of agency decisions
•
public interest disclosures from public sector
staff and
complaints about the way agencies have handled these
disclosures.
We oversee the
NSW Police Force’s
investigations
into
complaints about
police officers and check their
complaint-handling systems. We visit
juvenile justice
centres and correctional centres to observe their
operations and resolve concerns of
inmates. We also:
•
scrutinise legislation giving new
powers to
police
•
hear
appeals against decisions by the
Commissioner of
Police about the
witness protection program
•
provide
training and guidance in
investigations, complaint
management and good administrative conduct.
Organisations delivering services to children
Who we scrutinise
•
over 7,000 organisations providing services to children
– including
schools, child care centres, family day care,
out-of-school hours services,
juvenile justice centres
and organisations providing substitute residential care
and health programs
•
the conduct of paid
staff, contractors and thousands of
volunteers working for these organisations.
How we keep them accountable
Organisations are required to notify us of any
reportable
allegations about, or convictions for, conduct that could
be abusive to children. We oversee how organisations
handle these allegations about their
staff, and keep under
scrutiny their systems for dealing with such matters.
Where appropriate, we directly investigate the handling of
allegations. We also:
•
deal with
complaints from parents and other interested
parties about how organisations have investigated
allegations
•
keep under scrutiny the systems organisations have to
prevent employees from behaving in ways that could be
abusive to children
•
provide
training and guidance about how to handle
these kinds of allegations and convictions.
Organisations delivering
community
services
Who we scrutinise
•
licensed boarding houses and fee-for-service
organisations
•
child protection and family support services
•
out-of-home care services for
children and young people
•
home and
community care services
•
services for
people
with disabilities
•
supported accommodation and assistance program
services.
Community Services and Ageing, Disability and Home
Care provide many of these services. Non-government
organisations providing these services also fall within our
jurisdiction if they are funded, licensed or authorised by
the Minister for Community Services or the Minister for
Ageing and Disability Services.
How we keep them accountable
We investigate and resolve
complaints about the
provision, failure to provide, withdrawal, variation or
administration of
community services. We review:
•
standards for the delivery of
community services
•
the systems organisations have in place to handle
complaints about their services
•
the situation of children, young people and
people
with
disabilities who are in
out-of-home care
•
the
deaths of certain children, young people and
people
with disabilities in care.
We also:
•
visit certain services where children, young people and
people
with disabilities live
•
support the
Child Death Review Team
No comments:
Post a Comment