An investigation into the management of personnel in the Department of Justice’s Corrective Services division has revealed a level of inefficient management described by the investigator as “deeply disturbing.”
In her report entitled Staff Rostering in Corrective Service, Auditor General Caroline Spencer found that despite the Corrective Services being responsible for the State’s prisons, its inadequacy of managing staff rostering failed to deliver prison services safely and minimise its costs.
Ms Spencer said the range of serious deficiencies in systems, processes, controls and culture in the Service led to a “lack of effective oversight and accountability”.
“Consequently, overtime costs are high, officers are being paid for hours they have not worked, and absenteeism is a persistent problem,” Ms Spencer said.
“Furthermore, safety provisions in the industrial agreement are not being met, potentially putting prison officers at risk.”
She said that of great concern were the broad acceptances of poor practices when prison officers are absent from a shift.
“Processes vary from prison to prison and are often not complied with,” the Auditor General said.
“Management neglects to exercise adequate oversight and implement appropriate controls and to hold people to account.”
She said the result was the development of a culture of complacency whereby some prison officers fail to account for their time off and there is limited pressure for them to do so, leaving Corrective Services wide open to rorting and fraud in this area.
“The report presents a deeply disturbing picture,” Ms Spencer said “but much is not new.”
She said a range of reports and reviews over many years raised similar issues, but the Department had made little progress addressing them.
“This cannot continue,” she said.
The Auditor General made two recommendations: That the Department of Justice establish appropriate rostering management practices and that it implement contemporary and integrated human resource controls.
Ms Spencer’s 30-page report can be accessed at this PS News link and the Audit Team was Jason Beeley, Rowena Davis, Holly Ord, Nicholas Chin and Wendi Zeng.
