Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford
- Recommendations
- 21
- Report length
- 110 pages
Summary
The report's own summary: Executive Summary, pages 8 to 10
Generated summary: written by an AI model from the report text and checked against the cited pages.
South Australia’s Deputy Independent Commissioner Against Corruption evaluated practices at the City of Playford Council to identify improvements to integrity controls.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 6 · Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 8 · Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 9
The evaluation focused on current administration practices, including policies, records, procurement and human resources.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 8 · Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 9 · Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 10
The Deputy Commissioner identified weaknesses in policy implementation, compliance and records management that exposed the council to integrity risks.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 9
The Deputy Commissioner made 21 recommendations covering governance, records, recruitment, performance management and procurement.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 10 · Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 12 · Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 13 · Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 14
In the body's own words
- Conclusion
However, there remain a number of weaknesses in current council operations that leave it susceptible to corruption, misconduct or maladministration.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 9
Findings, opinions and statements
Allegations are not findings. A commission's finding or opinion of corrupt conduct or misconduct is not a finding that a person is guilty of a criminal offence, and the commissions say so in their reports.
No findings are reproduced in this record. This does not establish that the report contains none.
Recommendations 21
Recommendation 1
Develops an agreed set of organisational values which underpin the day to day activities and conduct of staff.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 12
Recommendation 2
Develops a policy governance framework that addresses the lifecycle of a policy including creation, approval, dissemination, education and review. The framework should be consistent with the principles articulated in this report.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 12
Recommendation 3
Mandates the review by the council governance team of all draft policies prior to presentation of the draft policy for approval.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 12
Recommendation 4
Amends its practices to ensure that council policies may only be approved by the Chief Executive Officer or the elected body.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 12
Recommendation 5
When approving a new or amended policy the Chief Executive Officer or the elected body also determine and approve an appropriate dissemination and education strategy to be applied in respect of that new or amended policy.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 12
Recommendation 6
Prepares a schedule for the review of all existing policies and for that review to be completed within 12 months of the tabling of this report.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 12
Recommendation 7
Within 18 months of the tabling of this report ensures that all current policies represent expected contemporary practice.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 12
Recommendation 8
Develops and implements, in accordance with the proposed policy governance framework, a fraud and corruption control policy modelled on Australian Standard AS8001 – 2008.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 12
Recommendation 9
Develops a new records management policy with accompanying procedures which reflect contemporary records management practices and, in particular: ⊲ ⊲ mandates the use of an established records management system for the storage of official records except for limited circumstances that are prescribed in the policy; ⊲ ⊲ makes express reference to the appropriate storage of emails in a manner consistent with the State Records Act; ⊲ ⊲ defines the precise responsibility of each employee in respect of the management of official records together with the particular responsibilities given to the records management team.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 13
Recommendation 10
Engages in an audit of records currently held on network drives and within email servers to identify those records that ought to be stored on an approved records management system and, upon the conclusion of such an audit, develop and implement a process for those records to be transferred to those systems.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 13
Recommendation 11
Develops and delivers an education program to all elected members and employees in respect of their records management obligations and the requirements contained within the updated records management policy and procedures.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 13
Recommendation 12
Develops and implements a process for regular audits to ensure records management practices are consistent with policy.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 13
Recommendation 13
Reconsiders its approach to managing actual or perceived conflicts of interest during recruitment and selection processes in light of the observations made in this report.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 13
Recommendation 14
Introduces a requirement that members of a selection panel be required to complete and sign a selection summary report which outlines the candidates who applied for a position, the performance of each candidate during the selection process, the deliberations of the panel in respect of the suitability of each candidate together with the reasons the panel recommended the selection of a particular candidate.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 13
Recommendation 15
Reinforces the need to complete selection panel interview notes in a consistent manner and that the notes bear the name and signature of the panel member completing the notes.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 14
Recommendation 16
Considers incorporating a requirement that selection panels include at least one panel member who does not work within the workgroup for which a recruitment is being conducted.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 14
Recommendation 17
Ensures that any performance management process adopted by the council includes safeguards that ensure all employees are given consistent and timely feedback on their performance and that there is a consistent approach to performance management for all council employees.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 14
Recommendation 18
Amends its procurement policy and guidelines to prescribe the key responsibilities for procurement decisions and the documents that must be created and retained for each stage of a procurement. The amendments should include an express requirement that all records relating to a procurement must be stored on an established records management system (i.e. not stored on a network drive or in an employee email mailbox).
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 14
Recommendation 19
Reminds staff of the importance of adhering to prescribed procurement policies and guidelines and that an unauthorised departure from those policies and guidelines will not be tolerated.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 14
Recommendation 20
Gives consideration to extending the role of council procurement officers to require that those officers be consulted in respect of council procurements under the current threshold of $100,000.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 14
Recommendation 21
Extends the role of finance officers to require that those officers be consulted in respect of council procurements of a value of more than $100,000.
Evaluation of the Practices, Policies and Procedures of the City of Playford Council, page 14
Published responses
No published response was found.
Coverage
This publisher
- Office for Public Integrity: publishes only its annual reports (excluded); no OPI report or statement records.
- Since October 2021 the Commission does not make findings of corrupt conduct; most records have no findings.
- Government and agency responses are recorded only where the Commission's page links them or the report reproduces them; implementation status is not published by the Commission as structured data.
- Scanned reports without a text layer are not read (no OCR); their recommendations stay not_extracted.
- Recommendations are extracted only from numbered 'Recommendation N' lists; reports that set out recommendations in prose, tables or unnumbered lists keep recommendations_status not_extracted.
- Findings are extracted only from investigation reports that state them in the Commissioner's own words (Oakden 2018, Gillman 2015); public statements are not read for findings.