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Growing compliance with protected disclosure laws
More Victorian public sector agencies are complying with important whistleblower protection laws, an IBAC progress report has found.
From 1 January 2020, the Protected Disclosure Act 2012 is replaced by the Public Interest Disclosures Act 2012. See Public interest disclosures for more information.
More Victorian public sector agencies are complying with important whistleblower protection laws, an IBAC progress report has found.
An initial review in 2014, conducted two years after the Protected Disclosure Act 2012 (PD Act) was introduced, found nearly a quarter of the sample agencies were not meeting legislated obligations regarding procedures for dealing with disclosures and protecting whistleblowers.
As a result, IBAC made 57 recommendations to 25 agencies, some of which did not even have basic whistleblower procedures in place.
As noted in a new progress report:
- all recommendations have now been accepted and at least partially implemented
- 11 of 17 agencies with non-compliant procedures have reported fully implementing IBAC’s recommendations
- seven agencies that did not have procedures in place had introduced them by September last year.
“Under the PD Act, each public sector agency was expected to have procedures and information in place by August 2013, to support staff and the public to speak out about wrongdoing,” IBAC CEO Alistair Maclean said.
“It’s encouraging to see evidence of great improvements and practice among this sample group, and this provides a good baseline for other agencies to work from to best meet their obligations.”
Important guides for agencies and their Protected Disclosure Coordinators have been updated, ahead of a coordinator seminar in March.
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