Reportable Conduct and Information Sharing Legislation Amendment Bill 2016: Response to Institutional Child Abuse in ACT
Monday 4 July 2016 @ 11.16 a.m. | Crime | Legal Research
On 9 June 2016, the ACT Government introduced the Reportable Conduct and Information Sharing Legislation Amendment Bill 2016 (the Bill). According to the Explanatory Statement, the purpose of the Bill is to introduce a Reportable Conduct Scheme (the Scheme) to improve reporting and oversight of allegations of misconduct by an employee or volunteer against children in organisations with a duty of care to children and young people.
Background to the Bill
According to the Second Reading speech of Mr Barr, the Bill stems from two key commitments:
- COAG agreement in principle from February 2016 that all States and Territories would develop nationally harmonised reportable conduct schemes; and
- Strong support from the Royal Commission for the NSW model on which the scheme is based, highlighting in particular, its strengths as best practice principles.
As such, the proposed scheme is a new function of the ACT Ombudsman and imposes a general duty on the ombudsman to keep under scrutiny the systems for preventing child abuse by employees of designated entities, and for the handling and responding to reportable allegations and convictions against those employees.
Amendments Contained in the Bill
The Bill amends the:
- Children and Young People Act 2008 (ACT);
- Ombudsman Act 1989 (ACT); and
- Working with Vulnerable People (Background Checking) Act 2011 (ACT).
There are four components of the Bill designed to establish a reportable conduct scheme aimed at improving reporting and oversight of allegations of employee misconduct against children in child-safe organisations. These components establish:
- a requirement for designated entities to report allegations, abuse and action taken to the ombudsman;
- a requirement for the ombudsman to keep policies and practices of designated entities under scrutiny;
- authority for the ombudsman to initiate their own investigation where they are unsatisfied with an organisation’s policies and practices; and
- authority for designated entities to share information to allow for the identification of child safety and wellbeing information.
The amendments recognise services and other entities interested in child welfare must have authority to request, provide and cooperatively share relevant information to support them to carry out their functions in a way that supports the safety, welfare and wellbeing of children and young people.
The Bill also recognises services and other entities have a responsibility to coordinate in the interest of supporting safety, welfare and wellbeing of children and young people. The amendments will support designated entities and their employees to cooperate in good faith, ensuring relevant information can be shared. It also recognises designated entities have a responsibility to protect the confidentiality of some information, but not to the extent it may limit reasonable steps for the coordination information that may identify risks to safety of children.
As stated by the Minister in his media release:
"The Ombudsman’s strong new oversight powers will also help to assure the community that investigations into allegations of child abuse against employees will be carefully monitored and reviewed by an independent statutory body."
The Bill is currently in the Assembly awaiting Second Reading.
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Sources:
Reportable Conduct and Information Sharing Legislation Amendment Bill 2016 (ACT) and Secondary Materials as reproduced in TimeBase LawOne
