2.1 About the PID scheme
The Public Interest Disclosures scheme (PID scheme) is a Victorian Public Sector ‘whistleblowing-system’ which operates under the PID Act to facilitate and provide a legal framework for reporting corruption and other misconduct by public bodies and public officers within the VPS.
‘Blowing the whistle’ on public sector corruption and misconduct, now known as making a public interest disclosure, is important in maintaining the integrity of the VPS as it enables corruption and other types of misconduct to be identified, investigated and, where possible, rectified and prevented.
The PID scheme encourages the making of public interest disclosures, by providing a number of protections to people who make their disclosures in accordance with the PID Act. The PID scheme also establishes a system for public interest disclosures to be investigated and any rectifying action to be taken.
Under the PID scheme, every VPS body is required to have personnel and procedures to assist and enable persons to make public interest disclosures. IBAC plays a central role within the PID scheme as it receives and is notified about the majority of disclosures made. This assists IBAC in its primary role of identifying, investigating, exposing and preventing corruption and other types of wrongdoing within the VPS.
The PID scheme is also supported by a number of other entities, including the VI, that receive disclosures and, where appropriate, notify those disclosures to IBAC for further review and investigation.
2.2 About the PID Act
The PID Act provides a legal framework for making a public interest disclosure.
The purpose of the PID Act is to promote the integrity and accountability of the Victorian public sector, by:
- encouraging and facilitating the making of disclosures about the wrongdoing of Victorian public bodies, their officers and people who have or who intend to adversely affect the honest or effective performance of a Victorian public body or officer
- providing protection for persons who make disclosures and persons who may suffer detrimental action in reprisal for those disclosures
- ensuring those disclosures are properly assessed and, where necessary, investigated, and
- providing for the confidentiality of the content of those disclosures and the identity of persons who make those disclosures.
2.3 The VI’s role
The VI’s role within the PID scheme includes:
- acting as the sole body responsible for receiving and investigating public interest disclosures about IBAC, IBAC officers and a Public Interest Monitor
- receiving public interest disclosures about all other entities that are not required to be made to another entity under the PID Act, for the purposes of notifying those disclosures to IBAC for further review and investigation (where appropriate)
- overseeing the performance by IBAC of its functions under the PID Act, and
- reviewing the public interest disclosure (PID) procedures that IBAC, the Victorian Ombudsman and the Judicial Commission of Victoria are required to establish under the PID Act.
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