Keeping people safe from domestic and family violence

Tabled Report 5: 2022–23

Tabled date

2022-11-10

Report year

2022-23

Community welfare Education Health Housing Justice and public order

Entities audited

Not identified in the published HTML audit scope.

Recommendations

1. QAO's text Addressed to: ensures its prioritisation of domestic and family violence calls for service is appropriate and effective. This

   ensures its prioritisation of domestic and family violence calls for service is appropriate and effective. This should include assessing all categories and investigating the significant increase in calls being categorised as Code 4 priority

2. QAO's text Addressed to: ensures its prioritisation of domestic and family violence calls for service is appropriate and effective. This

   undertakes a root cause analysis into delayed response times for calls regarding domestic and family violence, particularly those related to Code 2 and 3 priority calls for service.

3. QAO's text Addressed to: the Queensland Police Service

   strengthens its system and processes for sharing and accessing information, including better guidance and training and better use of warning flags to communicate risk.

4. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Justice and Attorney-General and the Queensland Police Service

   enhance support within courts to assist victims in making private applications for domestic violence and temporary protection orders

5. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Justice and Attorney-General and the Queensland Police Service

   identify why a high proportion of prosecutions for Criminal Code Act 1899 s. 315A offences (choking, suffocation, or strangulation) are unsuccessful

6. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Justice and Attorney-General and the Queensland Police Service

   gather and analyse data to assess where action is needed to improve access to, and timeliness and effectiveness of, referrals to DFV support services.

7. QAO's text Addressed to: ensures all police receive adequate and ongoing domestic and family violence-specific training appropriate to their role, and in particular that it provides all police officers mandatory annual face-to-face training on domestic and family violence all operational supervisors receive additional domestic and family violence training in accordance with the leadership requirements of their role. This

   ensures all police receive adequate and ongoing domestic and family violence-specific training appropriate to their role, and in particular that

   • it provides all police officers mandatory annual face-to-face training on domestic and family violence
   • all operational supervisors receive additional domestic and family violence training in accordance with the leadership requirements of their role. This should include periodic refresher/update training for supervisors who remain operational for extended periods
   • all police officers assigned to specialist domestic and family violence roles receive advanced domestic and family violence training in accordance with the specialist requirements of their role. This should occur within a short period of officers being newly assigned to these roles. Periodic refreshers/update training should be made available to officers who remain in specialist roles for extended periods.

8. QAO's text Addressed to: implement a cross-agency training program focused on enhancing inter-agency roles, coordination, communication, protocols, and multidisciplinary approaches. This

   implement a cross-agency training program focused on enhancing inter-agency roles, coordination, communication, protocols, and multidisciplinary approaches. This should include other key domestic and family violence support and service delivery entities, such as the courts, the Department of Health, the hospital and health services, the Department of Education, and non-government victim support services.

9. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Justice and Attorney-General

   establishes a holistic case management approach to domestic and family violence that considers the context and impact on the broader family or relationship and includes

   • coordinating case management across entities and services 
   • integrating risk assessment to consider all risk factors, and all people directly and indirectly exposed to domestic and family violence
   • taking collective responsibility for managing risk and ensuring staff are trained to assess risk
   • providing seamless access to information and data
   • working collaboratively and coordinating services and support

10. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Justice and Attorney-General

    analyses data and information to regularly evaluate the performance of high-risk teams, drive improvements, share learnings, inform resourcing and funding, and ensure all high‑risk victims are being referred

11. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Justice and Attorney-General

    refers all consenting high-risk victims in Queensland to high‑risk teams and provides support appropriate to their assessed risk, regardless of geographical boundaries

12. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Justice and Attorney-General

    improves the recording and availability of high‑risk teams’ information to ensure it is accessible across the teams and to all police responding to domestic and family violence incidents.

13. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Justice and Attorney-General and the Queensland Police Service

    progressively expand co-location and co-responder approaches across the state and include a wider range of services to better meet the needs of victims and people affected by domestic and family violence. This includes integrating them with high‑risk teams and the Queensland Police Service’s Domestic, Family Violence and Vulnerable Persons units.

14. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Justice and Attorney-General and the Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs

    develop strategies, resource, fund and identify suitable programs to provide support services specifically for children and young people exposed to domestic and family violence.

15. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Health and hospital and health services

    strengthen screening and risk assessing practices by

    • implementing the recommendations of the Death Review and Advisory Board (set up under the Coroners Act 2003 to research and analyse data and make recommendations to government) as a priority
    • ensuring its risk assessment and screening tools are updated and widely available across the health system
    • mandating and delivering face‑to‑face domestic and family violence training for all frontline health workers.

16. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Justice and Attorney-General

    collects and analyses its expenditure data to quantify and assess the government’s investment in domestic and family violence, in particular its funding of prevention and early intervention initiatives.

17. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Education

    annually assesses the delivery, reach, and effectiveness of the Respect program in Queensland state schools.

18. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Justice and Attorney-General and the Department of Communities, Housing and Digital Economy

    develop strategies to provide a range of crisis accommodation including for perpetrators of domestic and family violence, taking into consideration the management of risk to victims.

19. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Justice and Attorney-General, Queensland Corrective Services and the Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs

    increase the number, range, and quality of rehabilitation programs, including specific programs tailored for young people.

20. QAO's text Addressed to: the Department of Justice and Attorney-General

    strengthens its oversight and monitoring of its funded programs by

    • reviewing the demand, type, availability, and accessibility of perpetrator programs across Queensland
    • collecting data on attendance rates, completion rates, and waiting lists for its funded programs
    • evaluating the effectiveness of its funded programs.

21. QAO's text Addressed to: Queensland Corrective Services

    enhances its systems and processes for monitoring prisoners to ensure they do not breach domestic violence orders.

Authoritative report — Queensland Audit Office

Report PDF on QAO