When we receive a notification, refer a matter or make a recommendation, we can monitor it to ensure the public sector organisation takes adequate and appropriate action. Sometimes we can require the recipient of the referral to provide us with regular updates and/or reports on the matter.
Monitoring the response to referrals is crucial to understanding whether the organisation has the capacity to deal with the complaint or misconduct generally, and whether the actual complaint has been dealt with appropriately.
We monitor all referred assessments, investigations, public reports and recommendations, and most police notifications.
We may also selectively monitor referred complaints and notifications based on the following criteria:
- Is the matter about serious misconduct?
- Could the matter involve a designated (senior) public officer?
- Does the matter involve serious systemic or organisational issues, such that independent oversight is necessary?
- Is the public sector organisation unfamiliar with our processes and/or likely to be unfamiliar with managing misconduct matters?
- Have we had recent and/or serious concerns about how the organisation manages misconduct?
- Is the matter a protected disclosure under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2002 (Tas)?
When we decide to monitor a matter, we set follow-up dates to maintain regular contact with public sector organisations, usually every 6 months.
Referrals resulting from investigations are particularly important because our Board may have made recommendations on how it thinks the organisation should deal with the matter.
When we receive a response to a referred investigation, we review the response and prepare a report for the Board. The Board then considers whether it is satisfied with the response and may take further action if required.