News

The NSW Ombudsman will be delivering training workshops at the NSW ICAC’s rural and regional outreach program in the Hunter and Central Coast regions from 21 to 29 November.​

We monitor the operation and administration of the Mandatory Disease Testing Act 2021. This includes monitoring how agencies and persons exercise their functions under the Act.

The Mandatory Disease Testing Act 2021 came into force in July 2022. It provides for the mandatory blood testing of a person where a health, emergency or public sector worker who is working, comes into contact with that person’s bodily fluid. To obtain an order contact must be as a result of the person’s deliberate action, and testing the person’s blood is justified in all the circumstances.

An important part of our monitoring is to consider the opinions and experiences of persons who may have been subject to an MDT order or may have made an application for an MDT order.  
We are also interested in submissions from organisations who have advised or otherwise represented these persons.

Submissions to be received by 31 October 2023.

To make a submission visit: Public submissions on the Mandatory Disease Testing Act

The NSW Ombudsman has released a short paper looking at some ways the social media conduct of agencies and individual public servants could lead to concerns about possible misconduct or maladministration.

Every year for the past 5 years in New South Wales, between 2,300 and 2,600 children aged 12 to 15 have sought services, without a parent or guardian, from Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS).

A series of interactive workshops will be delivered on Tuesday, 23 May 2023 for investigators, factfinders and complaint handlers to increase knowledge, and provide new approaches, and perspectives for problem solving.

The NSW Ombudsman, Paul Miller, has today tabled a report assessing the extent to which the State’s child protection department achieved its five-year strategy to reduce overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care (OOHC).

The NSW Department of Communities & Justice’s Aboriginal Outcomes Strategy 2017-2021 (AOS) set an over-arching goal of reducing the over-representation of Aboriginal children in OOHC, together with four specific targets directed toward that goal.