2411. 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) when was the internal audit undertaken;
(b) what reporting time period did the internal audit consider;
(c) will the Minister please advise what specific new quality assurance processes have been put in place to address:
(i) under-reporting; and
(ii) recording inaccuracies; and
(d) which reporting time period will first reflect the more accurate records?
Hon Stephen Dawson replied:
(a) 8 July 2019.
(b) 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2018.
(c) Under-reporting and recording inaccuracies are addressed through a number of measures including:
The ‘other’ category was re-introduced. It had been removed in an earlier update to the Total Offender Management System (TOMS). As a result of its removal officers could not record assaults where there was no physical injury.
Regular review of all incidents categorised as assault, to ensure correct categorisation.
Quarterly internal reporting to Department of Justice Executive on serious assaults with additional review and scrutiny of the assault data.
An exception reporting process to identify assault incidents that do not have the assault details recorded (with facility-level review).
A system enhancement made in July 2018 to improve the process used to capture and categorise incidents. This enhancement has increased the completeness of assault incidents recorded (in particular non-critical assaults).
(d) Work was completed to identify and amend misclassified serious assaults from the 2017–2018 financial year. As a result, the rate of serious assault Key Performance Indicator will be restated for 2017–2018 as part of the 2018–2019 Annual Report process.