BackOn 1 July 1977, the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s office commenced its primary role of investigating administrative actions of Commonwealth Departments, usually in response to a complaint from a member of the public. Over time the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction expanded to include the Australian Federal Police (1981); Defence Force (1983); the ACT Government (under ACT legislation (1989)), private postal operators (2006) and complaints from overseas students about private registered Australian education providers (2011).
The Ombudsman’s role grew again in 2014/15, with the introduction of the Public Interest Disclosure (PID) scheme. The PID scheme covers Commonwealth departments and agencies, Commonwealth-controlled companies and the administrative functions of most Commonwealth courts and tribunals. At its heart, the PID scheme protects public officials from the consequences of making a disclosure, provided they make that disclosure to the right person. It is an offence for anyone to take reprisal action for a disclosure and provides access to the courts for redress.
The PID scheme places the responsibility on the ‘Principal Officer’ of each agency to establish procedures for receiving and investigating disclosures about their agency and the officials who belong to it, including the people or organisations with whom the agency has contracts to provide goods or deliver services. The Principal Officer must ensure that people know how to make a disclosure, including who to make it to, and take measures to protect officials from reprisal.
The Ombudsman has several important roles in the PID scheme:
- providing information and support for agencies and disclosers
- receiving and investigating disclosures about other agencies, if there are reasonable grounds for the discloser not to deal with the agency concerned
- monitoring and oversight: agencies must notify the Ombudsman when they allocate a disclosure; decide not to investigate or stop investigating ; and seek the Ombudsman’s approval if they cannot complete an investigation within 90 days
- receiving and investigating complaints about the way that agencies handle disclosures.
The Ombudsman reports each year on the operation of the PID scheme, including the numbers of disclosures received and investigated by each agency and the action taken in response to recommendations. The 2013-14 PID report is available at www.pid.ombudsman.gov.au along with a range of PID guides and fact sheets.
Please find more information on the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman in the following News Article.
Source: Commonwealth Ombudsman, AUSTRALIA
