Introduction

The purpose of this document is to provide staff and the wider community with a transparent explanation of the Ombudsman’s expectations and approach in exercising its investigative powers.

The Ombudsman’s power to investigate serves a dual purpose. It can resolve individual complaints. It can also achieve better public administration. 

One way to improve public administration is to investigate systemic issues identified across any of our areas of work. This includes issues identified in a wide variety of general complaints, as well as child deaths, family and domestic violence fatalities and the oversight of all child safe organisations.

Our goal for these systemic investigations is to improve the experience citizens have with public authorities and to improve public administration in measurable ways particularly where such improvements may save time and money, redress a significant power imbalance, prevent harm or save lives.

This document supports these goals by outlining how consistent and good quality investigative work is performed under the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1971 (the Act). It includes fifteen standards for the five phases of a systemic investigation, as set out in Figure 1.

Scope of this framework

The standards set out in this document apply to staff undertaking systemic investigations into administrative decisions and actions by organisations within our jurisdiction. These major investigations usually result in the tabling of a report in the Western Australian Parliament.

The standards do not cover investigations into individual child deaths or family and domestic violence fatalities, or, reportable conduct investigations undertaken under section 19ZB(1)(a) of the Act. Neither do they cover minor investigations; investigations into Charitable Trusts; or Energy and Water Ombudsman Scheme investigations. Many of the processes and standards are nonetheless likely to be relevant to these investigations.

This document provides a high-level overview of processes, standards and expectations, and does not encompass all relevant legal obligations nor detail all potential steps in an investigation.