IBAC Investigation

The Department sent this email to all principal's today:

This afternoon IBAC has announced the establishment of public examinations into alleged serious corruption at the Department. 
  
These examinations will look at the alleged involvement of former and current staff, as well as their associates. 
  
IBAC has informed the Department that it will focus on: 

• The alleged involvement of current and former DET staff in the establishment of ‘banker schools’, the allocation of funds to schools for goods and services that were not always provided, and the misuse of department funds 
• Whether DET staff (or their associates), and school principals and business managers received financial or other benefits as a result  
• The family and business connections between current and former DET staff (or their associates), school principals and business managers, and the suppliers of goods and services 
• DET systems and practices around procurement, financial management and allocation of funding and the awarding of contracts.

 

Named Operation Ord, the public examinations ‘Preliminary Information and Directions for Public Examinations’ can be found at: 
http://www.ibac.vic.gov.au/docs/default-source/hearings/preliminary-information-and-directions-for-public-examinations-in-operation-ord.pdf?sfvrsn=2 
  
The IBAC media release is available at: http://www.ibac.vic.gov.au/news-and-publications/news/Article/2015/03/16/ibac-examinations-to-be-held-into-alleged-serious-corruption-in-education-sector 
  
The hearings will start on Monday 27 April 2015 at the County Court of Victoria and will be open to the public. The Department is continuing to fully co-operate with IBAC’s investigation. 
If you have any questions or concerns, please call Monique Dawson on 9637 3222. 

In what is IBAC's most serious probe, the corruption watchdog on Monday put education officials on notice that they would have to publicly account for the movement of funds into and out of banker schools, the conferring of benefits on colleagues and themselves and arranging for the supply or "purported supply" of goods and services.

If IBAC found serious corrupt conduct involving one or more officials, it warned it would also probe the extent to which groups within the department fostered that conduct or "hindered opportunities or attempts to detect and eliminate that conduct".Watch this space.