{"id":301638,"date":"2021-06-30T19:05:03","date_gmt":"2021-06-30T09:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=301638"},"modified":"2021-06-30T19:14:06","modified_gmt":"2021-06-30T09:14:06","slug":"high-cost-of-complaints-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2021\/06\/30\/high-cost-of-complaints-revealed\/","title":{"rendered":"High Cost Of Complaints Revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_234302\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-234302\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/mark-pitt-200.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-234302\" src=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/mark-pitt-200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/mark-pitt-200.jpg 200w, https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/mark-pitt-200-171x300.jpg 171w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-234302\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">SBRC CEO Mark Pitt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>June 30, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>South Burnett Regional Council could &#8220;easily&#8221; spend $20,000 each time it hired an external investigator to consider complaints from the public, a report from a State Parliamentary Committee has revealed.<\/p>\n<p>Council&#8217;s own legal expenses could then add another $10,000 to this bill, but &#8220;complex&#8221; complaints could increase these amounts &#8220;tenfold&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>And on top of these costs, Council often had to divert staff resources away from other work to meet\u00a0Crime and Corruption Committee (CCC) timeframes.<\/p>\n<p>On March 26, CEO Mark Pitt\u00a0addressed a public hearing of the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee in Brisbane after the SBRC made a submission to Parliament&#8217;s mandatory five-year review of the CCC.<\/p>\n<p>The Parliamentary Committee&#8217;s 158-page report was released on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The committee made 30 recommendations, including at least one idea put forward by the SBRC;\u00a0 other issues aired by Council were also noted.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The SBRC&#8217;s submission covered:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The limited resources councils have to undertake investigations<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The cost of hiring external investigators<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The lengthy timeframes involved in getting a result, and<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>An apparent lessening of training offered to Council staff to prevent issues occurring in the first place.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On this latter point, Council appears to have had a win.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In Recommendation 29, the committee said the CCC should develop and deliver additional training and educational material.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In its submission, the SBRC said it would &#8220;welcome the reinvigoration of the preventative focus by the CCC through online and face-to-face training \/ engagement programs&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>During the public hearing, Mr Pitt suggested information would be &#8220;more digestible&#8221; if there was a greater focus on the use of videos with real-life examples, similar to material produced in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Staff could relate to it, people could understand it &#8230; we do not have that sort of material that is very relatable to the average staff member now,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The committee noted the importance of accessible and effective education and training materials.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It appears stakeholders would benefit from more practical guidance and training material such as suggested by the SBRC,&#8221; the committee wrote.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The committee also noted the SBRC&#8217;s concern that it sometimes waited months for a response from the CCC, however it made no recommendations about the timeliness of decision-making.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The SBRC&#8217;s concerns about the publication of allegations were also noted.<\/p>\n<p>At the public hearing, Mr Pitt suggested social media was the scourge of the modern day &#8220;in terms of councillors&#8217; and senior staff&#8217;s ability to defend themselves publicly&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It seems to be that we have a range of parties on occasions that &#8216;agency shop&#8217;,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Particularly where there is a complaint, we will read about it on social media before we get formal advice that it has happened.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>This did a lot of damage to public confidence in council.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;From previous experience, often if there is no corruption or no issue, it is not uncommon for us not to get a final statement to say that it has been dealt with. It just seems to disappear &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It does cause problems. There is a lot of commentary from the complainants about it, so it is nice to put these issues to bed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It would be really nice to put out a statement saying, &#8216;This was investigated. These were the outcomes&#8217;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>On the expense of investigations, Mr Pitt said an external investigator could cost Council between $10,000 and $20,000, and that the CCC often required a rapid turnaround which meant Council had to redirect resources to meet the timeframe.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In human resources, we will pull a person offline to do it, depending on the complexity,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have had some that have been very complex; others have been simple.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we have to pull in an external investigator, it is anything from 10 to 20 grand easily. We take our own legal advice to ensure the Council&#8217;s interests. There would be 10 (grand) there easily.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For the complex ones that drag out over a period of years, as some can, you can multiply that tenfold.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It seems a funny old system where if we send something off we have no decision point in it, and then it comes back to us and we are told, &#8216;You engage an investigator and you do it and you pay for it and let us know what the outcome is&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We might as well not send it off; we might as well just engage (our own investigator) &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we are going to get these things back to investigate, we might as well have control. We are paying the bill.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Footnote:\u00a0southburnett.com.au understands the SBRC&#8217;s legal bill &#8211; linked to complaints &#8211; over the past 12 months totals at least $190,000.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Related article: <a href=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2021\/03\/18\/council-ceo-to-address-mps\/\">Council CEO To Address MPs<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>External links:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.parliament.qld.gov.au\/Documents\/TableOffice\/TabledPapers\/2021\/5721T932.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Review of the CCC&#8217;s Activities<\/a>\u00a0(2.4Mb PDF)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.parliament.qld.gov.au\/documents\/committees\/PCCC\/2020\/ReviewCCC2021\/submissions\/015.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The SBRC submission<\/a>\u00a0(1.09Mb PDF)<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Burnett Regional Council could &#8220;easily&#8221; spend $20,000 each time it hired an external investigator to consider complaints from the public, a report from a State Parliamentary Committee has revealed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":237377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,3],"tags":[1131],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.11 - 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