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CORRUPTION TALES! Issue # 2 - NSW Department of Community Services

7/11/2017

4 Comments

 
Picture
In this issue, as promised in my intro issue, I'm going to relate my experience of the NSW Department of Community Services (DoCS).

Corruption Central!

I was deluded enough to take a job at DoCS after I decided to leave ICAC.  Given my extensive child protection background, when I saw a job advertised for a new function reviewing child deaths within departmental care, I actually thought I might be able to make a difference. Well, we all live and learn.
As a side note, whilst I've left various jobs feeling somewhat disenchanted with them, in hindsight I've never regretted taking a job, except for this one at DoCS.  I only spent 12 months there.
I should have listened to my gut feeling at the two job interviews I had, as the senior DoCS members on the panels came across as some of the coldest people I've ever met.
Anyway, that urge to do good things overrode my instinct and I took the job - Assistant Director for Child Death Reviews.
Fool was I.
Things started innocuously enough, with setting up systems, collating data, etc.  But it rapidly became clear that DoCS was not remotely interested in properly "reviewing" deaths of children in its care.  What the DoCs senior management appeared to want was a thorough and detailed justification of the Department's actions, regardless of the outcomes.
Of course, those "outcomes" were dead children.  Dead because of all sorts of reasons, but the one thing they all had in common was that they were under DoCS oversight as these were the seriously vulnerable and at-risk children in our society.
Now, before you think I'm writing off every single person within community services, I'm not.  In my short time at DoCS, I met many front-line staff who were trying their hardest to do a damned difficult and thankless job.  And I applaud those dedicated and caring staff.
But DoCS head office was another culture completely.  This was the culture of cover up and deception and document destruction; the culture of avoiding responsibility and accountability at all costs.
Things came to a head for me with the case of a baby who was beaten to death in a town in country NSW.  The child had been placed with supposedly carefully selected carers, who both happened to have extensive records of alcohol and violence.  The DoCS office didn't carry out proper checks, it turned out, and then placed the infant in the custody of these clearly unsuitable people.  The little child was murdered, no glossing over that.  The DoCs office then claimed they had done the checks, even "creating" records to try and establish this, but came unstuck in the review as, for one thing, the police records simply didn't correspond.
When I wrote my review report, I obviously highlighted this appalling negligence in not doing the checks, and then the egregious malfeasance in trying to cover up the fact.  To cut a long story short, I was called in by DoCS senior management, and directed, loudly and aggressively, to remove the damning portion from my report.  I was told that I could find fault with systems used, but under no circumstances was I to make any negative findings about DoCS personnel.
Yeah, I've never been that ambitious - I refused.  That wasn't exactly what you'd call a "career move".  However, I didn't foresee what was in store for me; should have guessed it was going to get nasty.
Three weeks of daily sessions (had been weekly meetings previously,  but it seemed I suddenly deserved special attention)  with senior management followed, being yelled at and denigrated, along with other punitive tactics.  It was all intended, no doubt, to make me cave in.  I didn't last longer than the three weeks, and I left.  Not my proudest professional day.  Rather than my resolve to stand my ground surrendering, it was finally my health that gave out, following the constant bullying, and I left in an ambulance (literally!).
I never saw the final review report, but I'd bet it was nicely sanitised and the "inconvenient" evidence collected had probably gone into a shredder.
And there were other aspects I saw which reflected endemic corruption at DoCS head office, including discussions about removing documents from files before the NSW Ombudsman viewed them.  It was, simply put, an entirely corrupt culture.
Whilst this sort of corruption has nothing to do directly with money, I think on many levels it is far more serious.  It's all about protecting the Establishment power structure from all scandal and criticism, let alone legal culpability.  And innocent, vulnerable members of our community are the victims.
If you're prepared to cover up the true facts around a child's death, then I would suggest that you are utterly morally bankrupt; you have sunk to the lowest level of gutter corruption possible; and you have surrendered all human decency to serve your own venal needs, and perhaps those of others (in this case, the government of the day - as they never like scandals under their watch).
Yes, whilst I've seen a lot of corruption in my time, in terms of a sheer moral abomination, nothing has ever topped what I experienced at DoCS.
May all those responsible for this type of corruption truly rot in hell.
Cheers,
ABP

P.S.1: More Corruption Tales coming! 

P.S.2: In case you've read the above and are wondering if I tried to do anything outside DoCS... (and a fair question).
​I subsequently tried twice to contact a senior officer at the Ombudsman's office with oversight responsibilities for DoCS - my calls were not returned.  To set the context at the time, the government had recently given a $4B funding injection to DoCS. I don't think anyone wanted to rock the boat, that's my speculation.  Or maybe that person was just bad at returning calls.  Who knows?
After I left DoCS, there was a Commission of Enquiry into child protection matters.  I did make a submission.  One of their lawyers contacted me and said they would need me to produce some documents or evidence to support my submission, if they were to be able do anything.  Yeah, given the nature of my leaving, I wasn't exactly collating documentary evidence on my way out the door.
So, the lesson to me was that our oversight mechanisms can be very "selective" in their oversight urges.
Sad but true.
Oh, and whilst I was in the process of resigning, I did formally complain to DoCS about the way I had been treated.  Result?  Nothing.  Not that there were any surprises there.

Cheers,
ABP
4 Comments
Anna
8/11/2017 12:00:33 am

OMG! How terrifying!

Reply
Laurel Briggs
31/5/2018 10:04:03 am

I have just come across your #2 story & just wanted to applaud you on keeping your dignity!! I was a foster carer for 8 years with an NGO in Charlestown & it was in the last 2 years that I was also lied about & degraded,I believe due to my concerns about & bringing attention to,my Foster son (of 4 years) disclosures,of being placed with an abusive religious foster family,from the age of 3years,along with his then 8 year old brother & joined later by a baby sister,taken straight from birth.The NGO finally got my Foster son out of my care, he has ended up in Juvenile Justice,the little sister has not been sighted by family since 2014,but was sent to India,supposedly for a holiday(2016/17 Xmas)& a passport was obtained using her mums ORIGINAL birth certificate,but it was ANOTHER(duplicated)ORIGINAL birth certificate that was returned to the young mum,FOUR months later.A FACS office has declined my carer application,acting on FALSE accusations from this NGO,without even meeting with me!!Meaning,these agencies can say whatever, about good,honest caring people & get away with destroying childrens & families lives.I also had DUBIOUS contact with the ombudsmans office & believe,responses just can't be genuine.In other words,cover ups.There is a lot more to my story,but I just wanted you to know,I SO BELIEVE YOUR STORY & THANKYOU!!

Reply
April Prior
7/1/2019 11:18:18 pm

I also am a foster carer of almost 16 years
the amount of issues i am having with documents going missing or being told they never existed.
I have only applied for a working with childrens checks twice in the last 16 years
most recently i have lodged formal complaints with the Help line Ombudsman and the complaints unit
but in the past have gone to local state and federal members regarding the treatment of the children FACS remove im hoping enough people will stand together to help these children they remove and forget about

Reply
Jay
12/4/2019 10:51:08 pm

Hi and thank you for speaking the truth.
I am a father of a very sexually, mentally adused boy at the hands of his mother.
Three years ago I tried just about ever agency I could to help me with my very trouble your son. But the more people I reached out to the more i was turned away, the reason" it was to traumatic for them to handle". After multiple phone calls I aventuly received a phone call from the FACS office stating that they had had a number of reports for agency regarding my son and the calls i had made.
At the time I was relieved someone was going to help.. well wasn't I wrong.
The facs office promised that they would help my son. The first step was that he would be taken from my care and put with specialised carers that could monitor him around the clock untill they Would put him into a managed treatment care program.
But thus never happened once my little boy had devolged that his mother had sexually assaulted him and the police were involved the FACS office did a complete back flip. Why you ask??? Because they knew the hole time. They knew that he was being beaten by his mother. They knew about multiple reports of concern of sexual abuse and did nothing and now it's all out in the open they have done every thing to make sure it's being covered up.
What was meant to be short term care to help him has now turned to full time care under the minister and to make things even worse the mother thats right the mother has more right than me.the aduser the one that did the damage to my little boy. I am treated like some scrum bag father. The two female case worker are even trying to reconnect my son with the mother even going to And saying that she is a really nice lady. And worst of all they have even told him that they believe she has done nothing wrong and that he is confused about what she did.
I have even been to the police and was told and quote " there is nothing we can do as they are untouchable" The police station I attended asked me to wait as they had called someone to come and talk to me.After waiting about 45 minute an officer walked in to talk to me, this guy was the local inspector the boss the big guy..
His exact words " im really sorry that you are going through this Sir but unfortunately that government protect these perthitic people and if he had his way he would charge them with child abuse.
My son has had some horrible, unspeakable thing done to him and they knew the hole time. This should not be allowed to happen

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