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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-10-18 Daily Xml
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EDUCATION AND CHILDREN'S SERVICES DEPARTMENT COMPLAINTS PROCESS

Ms FOX (Bright) (16:09): My question is to the Minister for Education. Will the minister outline what steps are being taken to ensure that parents have access to support should they wish to make a complaint about how an issue has been handled by their school or regional office? In July, the minister stated that the department would be investigating the handling of parent complaints following a recommendation in the report prepared by Mr Bill Cossey AM, regarding violence in our schools.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Minister for Education, Minister for Early Childhood Development, Minister for Science and Information Economy) (16:10): I thank the member for Bright for her question. We have been working assiduously away on those recommendations of Mr Cossey. The department has, frankly, in the past been criticised for the way in which it has handled complaints. The Ombudsman has made some remarks about the failure to publish clearly accessible complaints procedures, and he has also made some helpful suggestions about how those arrangements should be put in place, and that criticism has been warranted.

Staff from the department have worked closely with the Ombudsman's office to make sure that we have processes in place that are much more user friendly. Staff from the Ombudsman's office have given advice to us about the sorts of complaints that are coming in about the department and on the processes that are used in other jurisdictions for dealing with these matters. Together we have come up with a system which we believe is going to be much more responsive to parents and caregivers who have an issue with the system. Processes will be much more transparent with online documentation being available so that parents can actually see what the steps in the process are, and realistic timelines will also be there to make sure that people know what to expect from the process.

From the beginning of 2012, a parents complaints unit will be established within the department which will provide parents with support and advice in the early stages of the grievance process, connecting them to advocacy and advice services and also providing them with advice on the direction of the process. The unit will also take on complaints that have not been able to be resolved at the school or regional level, providing an independent avenue for complaints resolution. The unit will be staffed by a manager and people trained in mediation processes. The position of manager will be advertised shortly, with the successful person beginning in the role in early 2012. The Ombudsman's office has been asked to provide advice to the manager of the unit about the methods that are currently used by the Ombudsman's office when they are investigating complaints. And, of course, what needs to be borne in mind is that parents will still have access to the Ombudsman if they are not happy with the outcome of this process.

Just to update you on another matter that arises out of the Cossey report, one of the other recommendations was a much clearer understanding between schools and the police about what gets reported to police in terms of incidents at the school level. A memorandum of administrative agreement between schools and police has been developed to clarify the times when police will be called to schools. Obviously we do not want them in there for relatively minor things but, of course, they need to be involved in cases of schoolyard violence which are of any significance. It is planned that the MOAA will be fully operational by the beginning of next year, and this has been the subject of consultation with parents, with police, of course, and regional directors and state directors will be fully trained to make sure that they can implement these important measures.

It is important that parents have confidence that, when their kids are at school, they are learning and their safety is not compromised, but when something goes wrong at school, it is also critical that they have the ability to chat with their teachers, the principal and regional directors if it doesn't work out there, but also access to an independent complaint service so that their issues can be resolved. I am confident that this will be a very important improvement for the system.

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