2410. Hon Alison Xamon to the minister representing the Minister for Corrective Services:
I refer to the Minister’s media statement of 8 August 2019 about the under-reporting of prison assaults, and I ask:
(a) will the Minister please table of copy of the departmental audit report;
(b) if no to (a), will the Minister please table the findings of the audit;
(c) if no to (b), will the Minister please table the recommendations from the report; and
(d) if no to either (a), (b) or (c), why not?
Hon Stephen Dawson replied:
(a)–(b) The audit’s key findings were that:
Serious assaults for annual reporting purposes for the 2017/18 financial year was estimated to be under reported by at least 27%, while total assaults were under reported by at least 8% at Casuarina and Hakea Prisons.
There are deficiencies in the design and consistent operation of input controls for the recording, classifying and reporting of serious assaults.
Data completeness and accuracy issues should be addressed by implementing mitigating and corrective controls.
(c) The audit’s recommendations to address the findings were:
The business rules for defining serious assaults and assaults from whole of Government reporting be integrated into Policy Directive 41.
All officers completing incident reports undergo refresher training in accurately recording and classifying incidents.
Principal and Senior Officers responsible for closing the incident notification for statistical purposes undergo refresher training in accurately confirming incident classification, including agreed parameters for timeframes for completing notifications and updating notifications should additional information become available.
The Department’s quality assurance process is reviewed to determine how medical records can be considered during the classification process.
The Department’s quality assurance process includes testing the completeness of incidents that may constitute an assault.
(d) Not applicable.