December 8, 2020
Deputy Premier and Local Government Minister Steven Miles says more staff have been hired by the Office of Independent Assessor (OIA) to help keep up with the level of Council complaints.
Dr Miles said more than 1000 local government councillor complaints this year have been referred to the OIA.
“We have allocated an additional $250,000 until the end of 2020-2021 to support an increase of three additional staff,” the Deputy Premier said.
Prior to OIA’s establishment in December 2018, councillor conduct complaints were managed by the Department of Local Government, Racing and Multicultural Affairs.
“We established the OIA as part of our government’s commitment to local government reform, to assess and investigate councillor conduct complaints,” Dr Miles said.
“The continuing high number of complaints received is likely due to the heightened focus on integrity in local government, previous under-reporting, and increased confidence in raising issues with an independent body.”
When established it was anticipated the OIA would receive about 160 complaints a year. In 2019-20, the OIA received 1030 complaints containing 1097 allegations.
“Despite this huge increase, in 2019-20 the OIA completed 75 per cent of assessments within 21 working days,” Dr Miles said.
“This is a credit to the hardworking team who dealt with this significant increase in assessments needing to be completed.
“I’d like to commend the Office of the Independent Assessor for their outstanding work in managing such a high caseload.
“The additional funding will ensure the Office of the Independent Assessor continues to have the resourcing necessary to efficiently, effectively and transparently manage complaints about the conduct of Queensland councillors.
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Since the office of the OIA was created, 17 complaints have been lodged with it in regards to South Burnett councillors.
Eight complaints have been dismissed, or no further action taken, by the OIA on the grounds the alleged conduct did not raise a reasonable suspicion of inappropriate conduct or misconduct.
Two were dismissed because the complainant did not supply sufficient information for the OIA to properly investigate.
Two were dismissed because the OIA judged that dealing with the complaint would be an unjustifiable use of resources.
Other complaints were dismissed because the complaint was considered to be vexatious, or the complaint did not meet the threshold for inappropriate or misconduct, or was not within the jurisdiction of the OIA, or was lacking in substance.
One complaint was resolved and considered to have been withdrawn.
- External link: Outcome Of Complaints Against Councillors
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Editorial footnote: southburnett.com.au has been told previously that every complaint lodged with Council costs ratepayers about $10,000 to process. If this figure still holds true, the SBRC is out-of-pocket $170,000 because a handful of people over the past few years have decided to whinge about something that offended them but didn’t actually constitute “misconduct”. Unfortunately, privacy rules means no one except the OIA and the councillors concerned know who these anonymous complainants are.
