“It’s bad practice [for] the commission to take four years to investigate and report on an issue where the facts were readily discoverable.” HUGH SELBY doubles down on his call to abolish the snail-pace ACT Integrity Commission. 

In a January 11 column, I called for the abolition of the ACT Integrity Commission on the basis its results are “too insubstantial, and too long in the making, to justify its expense”.

“In its place the Inquiries Act should be reviewed to allow for the easier setting up of time-limited inquiries into specific allegations as needed,” I wrote.

Consider the following information and you, too, may reach the same opinion.

The commission’s 2023/24 Annual Report tells us that total expenses for that reporting period were just short of $7.5 million. It is expected that the cost will rise to $7.8 million for 2024/25, mainly for telephone interception and other electronic “communication” issues.

For that money 15 preliminary inquiries were being conducted, 15 investigations were under way, and three, just three, special reports were presented. This was the output from 27 full time employees, of whom two are focused upon education and outreach.

Preliminary inquiries are done so that the commission can decide to “dismiss, refer (elsewhere), or investigate”. 

Here are two instances from a list of nine such inquiries: how a complaint alleging conflict of interest could require 918 (sic) days of preliminary work is not explained. 

Likewise, the nature of “preliminary” has been stretched to the absurd in the 755 days to make a stop, send elsewhere, start decision on a complaint that a public official had strayed from the honest, impartial path. 

The commission’s investigation into the Campbell Primary School tender debacle began in March 2021. Infants born that month are now at pre-school, clearly progressing much more quickly than this inquiry. 

By contrast, the ACT Auditor General Michael Harris completed a revealing inquiry into this matter. 

Alerted to problems in the tender decision process in November 2020 an investigation was begun in April 2021 (apparently one month after the Integrity Commission was notified). The auditor-general delivered his report – critical of what had happened and including proposals for improvements – in time for Christmas 2021, that’s less than nine months.

We must cross our fingers that when Commissioner Michael Adams KC signs the final report it will justify the years and expense since the auditor-general’s report.

The commission is still investigating – after nine months – how Walter Sofronoff KC’s giving two journalists embargoed copies of his Inquiry Report into the claims and conduct of (then) DPP Shane Drumgold could be “corrupt conduct under the (Integrity Commission) Act”. I hope that it is just an oversight that the significant  word “embargo” does not appear in the commission description of this investigation. 

But that omission does not explain, given that the facts are known, why a simple matter of reading the clear words of a statute has taken any more than one week.

Unfortunately, the Integrity Commission Act, 2018 does not impose any time limits on what the commission does.

Also unfortunately, there is nothing that requires the commission to work efficiently to achieve useful outcomes within a realistic budget. There is nothing that requires it, or even assists it, to prioritise complaints and to allocate its resources accordingly.  

Its objectives, in section 6, include, “achieving a balance between the public interest in exposing corruption in public administration and the public interest in avoiding undue prejudice to a person’s reputation”.

There is nothing in the annual report about whether there were persons subject to complaint allegations, widely known within their work place, who waited many months before the allegations were dismissed. One or more such people would have a justified sense of grievance about how the commission has failed them and their organisation.

Hot off the press, but years late

Timely, cost effective methods do not seem to have been front of mind in the commission’s release at 6.30pm on Friday, January 17, of its Operation Falcon investigations into what happened and didn’t happen at our prison (AMC) in mid-October 2020 with respect to required hourly medical observations of a prisoner and the records associated with those observations. For health reasons the prisoner was placed in the Special Care Centre.

The Commission was notified in November 2020. It took over four years to complete its work. Significantly, questioning on oath did not take place until 2.5 to three years after the complaint was lodged. The bottom line is that there were no findings of corrupt conduct, but adverse findings have been made about the conduct of some officers.

We are told that documentary evidence and CCTV footage “objectively and clearly establish various central facts”.

For example, none of the written observations entered by the four officers who completed the record form on the relevant day included the required information.

Further, the supervisory inspection of the forms was not done. There was a continuing failure, so much so that it pointed to, “a systemic failure” 

From the CCTV it was clear:

• That the required hourly observations were not made on five occasions;

• The relevant officer falsified the written record by recording that the observations were made; and,

• There was no reason that would excuse the failure to make the required observations.

It follows that the officer’s conduct on its face amounted to misconduct that required a management disciplinary response.

Following the prisoner’s complaint to the Official Visitor, the lack of observations was reported. Apparently, nothing happened. There was nothing on the officer’s file and, “there is no documentary record that any investigation at all was undertaken”.

The “systemic failure’ seems to have continued until the suicide of another prisoner early in 2022. There was a missed observation of that prisoner – though that was not causally connected to the death.

In late 2024 a new observations procedure protocol was introduced which, if followed, will mean improved record keeping.

Hence, it could be said that the underlying problem was fixed by Corrections management and that this was achieved in less time than the snail’s pace interventions of the commission.

Not so fast. The prisoner who needed to be observed was not observed as required on multiple occasions. For lack of any other explanation we might assume that this was because the responsible officer couldn’t be bothered. Repeated false entries were made into a report. The required supervisor’s review of that report was not done. That too reflects a lax approach to the job. Keep in mind that this was at the Special Care Centre, that is a place where close attention is mandatory. 

The prisoner made a proper complaint about not being observed to the Official Visitor who then reported that complaint. The Official Visitor was fobbed off. Corrections’ Integrity Unit should have been notified. It wasn’t.  There is also a Custodial Services Inspector; however, missed medical observations are not within their jurisdiction.

The officer who failed to make the required observations and then falsified the written record did not take part in the commission’s investigation. This was for “welfare” reasons accepted by the commission. “Welfare” is not explained in the report.

This is a story of a corrections officer who didn’t do their job, for reasons unknown. Worse, they chose to make a false record: that’s misconduct.

Thereafter there were a series of management failures to investigate these events. Part of that failure is readily explained by needing to respond to crises. Part is also explained by the personal circumstances of a key management player. But a critical part – being the continuing failure to respond properly – is not explained, other than by observing, as the commission did, that there was systemic failure, that being failure that was not addressed until last October.

“Systemic failure” often reflects an organisational culture that lets bad practice flourish.

It’s bad practice by both Corrections and the commission to take four years to investigate, to report, and take action to resolve an issue where the facts were readily discoverable.

It’s bad practice to issue a report that fails to address the reasons for the delay in producing that report. There is no acknowledgement of the delay, no reasons given for it, nothing as to how that delay affected the prisoner complainant or those called, belatedly, to give evidence.

Another “systemic failure”, but this time by the guardian of integrity. It’s not a good look. It’s not what we have a right to expect from $7.5 million dollars expenditure, not even close.

Hugh Selby, a former barrister, is the CityNews legal affairs commentator. His free podcasts on “Witness Essentials” and “Advocacy in court: preparation and performance” can be heard on the best known podcast sites.