Fraud and Corruption Prevention
Council is strongly committed to driving a high performing organisation underpinned by robust governance practices and ethics principles. We are continually focused on proactively driving a fraud-free culture through the delivery of all our policies, processes, and projects throughout all levels of our organisation.
Council has zero-tolerance of fraudulent or corrupt conduct by its councillors, employees, contractors, suppliers and volunteers. Council will take action to prevent, detect, investigate and manage fraudulent and corrupt conduct. Where appropriate or required by law, Council will report fraudulent and corrupt conduct to the Independent Commission Against Corruption and the NSW Police Force.
For more information, please see Council's Fraud and Corruption Control Policy (PDF, 100KB)
Public Interest Disclosures
The Public Interest Disclosures Act 2022 (PID Act) sets in place a system to encourage public officials to report serious wrongdoing. It provides an internal reporting system to report certain types of wrongdoing, classified as ‘public interest disclosures', without fear of reprisal.
Serious wrongdoing is defined in the PID Act as:
- corrupt conduct — such as a public official accepting a bribe
- serious maladministration — such as an agency systemically failing to comply with proper recruitment processes when hiring staff
- a government information contravention — such as destroying, concealing or altering records to prevent them from being released under a Government Information Public Access application
- a local government pecuniary interest contravention — such as a senior council staff member recommending a family member for a council contract and not declaring the relationship
- a privacy contravention — such as unlawfully accessing a person’s personal information on an agency’s database
- a serious and substantial waste of public money — such as an agency not following a competitive tendering process when contracting with entities to undertake government work.
This policy applies to, and for the benefit of, all Council Officials, being “public officials” as defined under the PID Act. It also applies to the following people to whom the concept of the “public official” extends, under the PID Act:
- A person providing services or exercising functions on behalf of Council, including a service provider/service partner, or volunteer.
- An employee, partner or officer of an entity that provides services under contract, subcontract, or other arrangement, on behalf of Council or exercises functions of Council, and are involved in providing those services or exercising those functions.
This policy sets out:
- How Council will support and protect you if you come forward with a report of serious wrongdoing
- How we will deal with the report and our other responsibilities under the PID Act
- Who to contact if you want to make a report
- How to make a report
- The protections which are available to you under the PID Act.
For more detailed information please see Council’s Public Interest Disclosure Policy (PDF, 406KB)