News

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The NIS is a joint initiative of the NSW ICAC, the NSW Ombudsman and IPAA NSW.

A special report of the NSW Ombudsman has been tabled in Parliament today, following an investigation into the strip searching of 3 young people at Frank Baxter Youth Justice Centre in 2019.

The searches were conducted in a way that is allowed of adults in the adult prison system, but which is generally not allowed of young people in youth justice centres.

Paul Miller PSM has been appointed NSW Ombudsman, after acting in the role since August 2020, the Special Minister for State Don Harwin has announced.

A NSW Ombudsman report highlights the impacts on individuals of measures taken by the NSW Government to combat COVID-19, especially for vulnerable members of the community and those who have been subject to quarantine.

Tabled in NSW Parliament today, 2020 hindsight: the first 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic also highlights the need for effective complaint handling and oversight to be designed into any government crisis response.

In the 12 months from the first Australian COVID case on 25 January 2020, the NSW Ombudsman received over 900 contacts from individuals wishing to raise complaints or concerns about their treatment or experience of the NSW government’s pandemic measures.

There is inherent potential for conflicts of interest when NSW local councils undertake their own developments, according to a new report by the NSW Ombudsman.

The report An inherent conflict of interest: councils as developer and regulator, tabled in Parliament today by Acting Ombudsman Paul Miller, has found this potential exists because there are no clear guidelines or best-practice approaches for instances when a local council is both the developer as well as being the regulator of that development.

The report also highlights an instance when such a conflict of interest led to unlawful action.

A NSW Ombudsman’s report on public sector whistleblowing shows that NSW public officials made 949 public interest disclosures (PIDs) to investigating authorities in the 2019-20 financial year.

Two thirds of those were made to ICAC by heads of public sector agencies who are required by law to report possible corrupt conduct. In addition, agencies received nearly 400 (383) reports of wrongdoing about their own agencies. Consistent with previous years, the majority (85%) of those included an allegation of corrupt conduct.

While the report shows that there were slightly fewer PIDs in 2019-20 than in 2018-19, the number of reports remains higher than earlier years, and is consistent with a long-term trend of increased reporting.