In its annual report published yesterday, the Victoria Ombudsman Marlo Baragwanath said the Government's lack of support was impacting its ability to investigate complaints from the public and ensure that the government's behaviour is held to account.
"I am increasingly concerned that core integrity agencies are receiving a diminishing proportion of resources relative to the growth of the public sector they are charged with overseeing. Accordingly, I will continue to advocate for a transparent process to ensure our funding is sufficient and sustainable, and simple reforms to our Act to better enable us to efficiently perform our functions," she wrote.
The evidence of this lack of funding can be found in the Ombudsman's scoreboard where the agency admits that a project to implement a new complaints review system was "on hold due to resourcing constraints."
The report also revealed:
- Only 47 per cent of investigations were completed within 12 months (target: 75 per cent)
- Complainant satisfaction dropped to 50 per cent (target: 60 per cent)
- Investigation timeframes blew out to an average of 75 weeks (target: 47 weeks)
The Victorian Ombudsman even admits it does not utilise electricity offsets, such as Greenpower, due to "financial constraints".
Shadow Attorney-General James Newbury says: "The Allan Labor Government that is starving the public watchdog of funding is the same government that turned a blind eye to alleged union corruption on its Big Build government worksites.
"The Labor government that is depriving the Ombudsman of resources is the same government that wants to spend $35 billion on a train line from Cheltenham to Box Hill, without providing a business case.
"When you see the Labor Government starving integrity agencies of funding, you need to ask, what does Jacinta Allan have to hide?"
