it_is_the_light
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and nothing happens. So, for us to be able to look at that holistically is I guess a unique opportunity. And I guess that the sense that George Brouwer has said, even though every other area of the functions of the [Ombudsman] Office have been separated, in this area it needs to continue to operate as a joint Project. So, that's if you like the context. What are we doing? We are reviewing all the files, the police complaints, and mainly the complaints from the Education and the Human Services area, every single complaint that has anything to do with someone alleging sexual assault. Whether or not the complaint to us is about that, maybe is not relevant, if there is a person saying they have been subject to sexual assault, or sexual misconduct, then that is a file that we are looking at, and we are entering, we've established a database, and what we're doing is looking at if you like the sort of things that people complain about, and probably the kind of things that people don't complain about, where complaints come from, where they don't come from, and then all the players, every single name that's been on the file in this Office, for the last four years in association with the complaint, would be entered on a database. And what it will demonstrate is if there are names appearing more than once. Reina: Mmm. (Omb Investig 3): And what we hope to do with that information, and with some discussions we are having with people like yourself, but already we've met with the CASA's (Centres Against Sexual Assault), we've met already with the APP, we've met with the Witness Assistant Service to identify if you like what are common issues and we will be taking those issues with the facts that we have, and asking the key agencies how is that they collect data. What it is they do, to track employees, or for example, failure to prosecute rape cases in particular agencies, incidences of sexual assault that influence two students at the same school, stuff that might never get to police, and look at their policies and procedures, and then identify issues that are common that point to rape - systematic rape breakdown issues. And, we've already got 44 issues. Reina: Wow. (Omb Investig 2). And, they're very significant issues, too. Reina: Can you give a couple of examples? Well, an example of the practice of some agencies when an accusation is made about a person with insufficient evidence to prove or proceed, or negotiate the termination and resignation occurs. That's one issue. In the early discussions we've had, we've identified issues with taxi drivers, I can't remember all of them… (Omb Investig 2): But, in those 41 issues we've captured your issues. Things like the [tape] recording, remember, you've talked about that quite a bit, well, were going to focus some of those things. Reina: Like, power to interview witnesses that can corroborate? (Omb Investig 2): Yes. Well, what were looking at is partly the prosecution process that picks up things like the witnesses, it's from 'go to wo' and…without tipping what we've already found, there are a number of issues that we are going to put to the police, as we are going to put to others as well, too, by the way. But we are in the early days. (Omb Investig 3): We will continue meeting, and we are interested in identifying those structural defects, the policy and procedure, employee screening, issues across the board, and identifying that sort of stuff, but also solutions and ways in which if you like agencies might be able to improve the collective response that they have through understandings between agencies, policies that they do implement in relation to insuring everyone has access to a CASA person, those sorts of things. And, we are interviewing everyone separately and apart, or talking to them, and I should say that it is intended to be a collaborative process that is problem-solving because we think that we have been on a problem-finding, we want to go ahead with what we think so we are getting that hard data together and confirmed through discussions with people. Once we've got if you like consensus on what are the key areas of issue sort of stuff, we will probably as this is early days yet, so we are not committing ourselves to this, but we will see if we can actually get some problem-solving activities happening, so we might get representatives from the key agencies together saying 'These are the issues we've discovered, particularly across agencies, what are you going to do about them?' (Omb Investig 2): And, some of these are agencies will be agencies specific too... And there are some hard issues for them to answer, by the way. There is some very difficult questions that we want answers to. (Omb Investig 3): And, irrespective of the results of that, I think that we are increasingly heading to something that is a formal report, maybe tabled in Parliament, that established some issues hopefully and recommends some areas of change. The key aim of the Project is to improve the response of all agencies to allegations of sexual assault… To provide consistency and efficiency and timely responses… That produces the best outcome for the person that's been assaulted. I think we are going to be able to achieve that, but some of the stuff I think is relatively easy, I mean, 'Does your database talk to itself?' But that very clear message that you had is that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, and there is no way for tracking of what is maybe a
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