The word "investigation" is used carelessly by senior officers of the Queensland Department of Education.
A phone call to a "mate" is not an investigation.
And it is unjust, abusive and deceptive for senior public servants to allow one of the people whose behaviour is the subject of a complaint to organise a tightly controlled "internal review" - which simply consists of -
- "drawing inferences" from falsified documents,
- refusing to allow any questions to be asked,
- refusing to allow the complainant's responses to the falsified documents to be considered
- and then for them to describe this very limited "internal review" in phone calls to other Government departments and in the official records as "an investigation".
I suspect that the careless use of the words, "we investigated it and found no evidence of ...", to describe poor professional practices is the cause of much wasted FOI search time.
I suspect that FOI officers are being asked to search for the documentation of "investigations" that were really little more than quick phone calls to a "mate".
If Department of Education Education official reports were referenced to a professional standard - the standard expected of any university student, for example - it would improve accountability, discourage workplace abuse and greatly reduce the need to make repeated FOI applications for this documentation.
- The official records of an investigation should contain an accurate copy of the original complaint.
- Reference should be made to the specific document that supports any statement, finding, etc. made in internal review reports, investigation reports, Briefings for Ministers, etc.
- Department of Education officers who claim "I am told" or "I understand" something should be required to identify the documentary evidence that supports that claim.
This would discourage malicious gossip and mobbing, improve the quality of professional records and reduce the amount of time spent searching for FOI documents.
- A copy of all documentation that supports the findings of an investigation should be kept with the investigation report so that it cannot be "lost".
This simple strategy would -
- reduce the abuse of the Department of Education internal review / investigation / grievance / FOI processes to abuse teachers
- and reduce the time spent searching for "lost" FOI documents.
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