Public interest disclosures are when people report improper conduct and corruption in the Victorian public sector.
Many people know this as whistleblowing.
Read the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission’s (IBAC) guidelines.
They answer these questions:
You can also contact us with any concerns or complaints you have, instead of making a public interest disclosure.
If you work at the Commission, think about if you can raise your issue with a manager.
Go to step 4 to contact our public interest disclosure officer.
What you can make a public interest disclosure about
To make a public interest disclosure, you need to have reasonable grounds that a public sector employee or public sector organisation:
You can only make a disclosure if it’s about the performance of a person or organisation’s function in the public sector.
Think carefully about whether your disclosure meets these basic thresholds.
Improper conduct must be either criminal conduct, serious professional misconduct or other conduct specified in Section 4 of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2012.
Examples of this are:
Detrimental action is when someone retaliates through harassment, discrimination or other adverse action against:
It isn’t action by a manager where they have good grounds to justify their actions and where a disclosure isn’t the substantial reason they’re taking action against you.
Examples of detrimental action are:
Victoria has protections in place to keep a person’s identity confidential and protect them against retaliation in the form of bullying, harassment or legal action.
The Public Interest Disclosures Act 2012 tells you about what protections you have when making a public interest disclosure.
These protections apply from the time you make a disclosure to us, even if we decide your disclosure doesn’t comply with the Act.
They also apply if you’re asked to give us, IBAC or another investigating body more information.
If IBAC don’t think your disclosure should become a public interest complaint, you’ll still get protections.
Read more about your protections in the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission’s (IBAC) guidelines.
Keeping your public interest disclosure private
You must make a disclosure in private.
This means only the person you’re disclosing to can hear or receive it. Your protections may not apply if you don’t do this.
If you’re thinking about going public with your disclosure, first speak with your:
When confidentiality protections may not apply
It’s against the law for anyone to release information about your public interest disclosure that may lead to your identification.
But in-line with the law, the confidentiality about your disclosure may not apply:
If an investigating body or person receives information about your disclosure, they’re bound by the same confidentiality laws.
What protections we offer from detrimental action
We try to prevent our staff from taking detrimental action by managing the risks a discloser or witness may face.
We’ll try and consult with the discloser or witness about how we should manage the risk, but how we manage it changes based on the situation.
If someone says they’ve witnessed detrimental action, the person they tell needs to record what happened and let them know how the law protects them.
If you witness detrimental action and report it, we treat this as a new public interest disclosure and assess it using this process.
If the disclosure may lead to a criminal offence, we may tell the police or Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC).
Keeping your public interest disclosure private
You must make a disclosure in private. This means only the person you’re disclosing to can hear or receive it. Your protections may not apply if you don’t do this.
If you’re thinking about going public with your disclosure, first speak with your Public Interest Disclosure Coordinator or welfare manager, or get legal advice.
If you work for us and have made a disclosure, you may ask to transfer to another public sector organisation if you believe your disclosure will lead to detrimental action against you.
You don’t have to find a place to transfer yourself, but you can suggest one.
The place you transfer to must offer similar employment terms and conditions to your current role which are not worse off to you overall.
To transfer:
If you’ve sustained injury, loss or damage from someone taking detrimental action against you, there are options available to you in the Public Interest Disclosures Act 2012. But we recommend you also get legal advice.
If you’re involved in the improper conduct or detrimental action you’re making a disclosure about, you’re still liable for your involvement.
If you make a disclosure, you’re not immune to any wrongdoing you may be part of.
Once we or the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) know about a disclosure, you must protect the identity of the person who made the disclosure.
This means keeping the content or information about the content of the disclosure confidential.
Criminal offences to be aware of
It’s an offence for any person to:
If a public interest disclosure is made against you
If you need it, we’ll support you while we investigate any public interest disclosure made against you.
This may mean we appoint you a welfare manager.
We’ll protect your confidentiality, in-line with the Public Interest Disclosures Act 2012.
If we find the disclosure isn’t valid, we’ll still protect the confidentiality of:
Step 1: confirm who you want to make the public interest disclosure about
If you want to make a disclosure about the Victorian Public Sector Commission or our staff, use this process. If you work for us, you can also use this process.
If you want to make a disclosure about another organisation or their staff, make a complaint to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC).
We can still receive disclosures about other organisations, but we recommend you send them to IBAC.
If in doubt, make your disclosure to IBAC, unless the disclosure is about IBAC or its staff.
Step 2: check you’re eligible to make the public interest disclosure
Any member of the public, VPS employee or public sector employee can make a disclosure.
You must make a disclosure as an individual or group of individuals, not as a company or business.
You can ask someone to make a disclosure on your behalf. But if you do this, you won’t have the same protections as if you made it yourself.
If someone makes a disclosure on your behalf, the law will protect your confidentiality and any retaliation against you.
You can only make a disclosure if it’s about the performance of a person or organisation’s function in the public sector.
You must be able to link the allegations to their performance.
Reasonable grounds means you have proof for your disclosure or believe it’s true.
If you make a disclosure based on suspicion, allegation or a conclusion you’ve come to and can’t give us any more information on top of that, the law won’t protect you.
An example of reasonable grounds is:
To make a public interest disclosure, you need to have reasonable grounds that a public sector employee or public sector organisation:
You can only make a disclosure if it’s about the performance of a person or organisation’s function in the public sector.
Think carefully that your disclosure meets these basic thresholds.
Step 3: decide how you want to make the public interest disclosure
You can make a disclosure:
You can disclose anonymously but this may affect how we investigate it and we won’t tell you the outcome.
You must make a disclosure in private. This means only the person you’re disclosing to can hear or receive it.
The person who receives your disclosure must get it personally.
For example:
The person who receives your disclosure may take notes of your discussion.
With your permission, they may record your discussion.
Step 4: submit your public interest disclosure
At the Victorian Public Sector Commission, you can make your disclosure to:
Our Public Interest Disclosure Officer is:
Chris Hofmann
Director, Corporate and Digital Services
Or
Phone
Post
2 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, 3000
Our Public Interest Disclosure Coordinator will let you know we’ve received your disclosure verbally or in writing.
They’ll also let you know what the next steps and timeframes are.
Our Public Interest Disclosure Coordinator will assess if your disclosure complies with the Public Interest Disclosures Act 2012.
They may also talk with you about what welfare support we can offer or if we need to appoint a welfare manager. We can also offer to witness an investigation.
If your disclosure complies with the Act, we’ll notify the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) about it within 28 days.
We’ll also tell you we’ve notified IBAC.
It’s an offence for you to inform anyone that we notified IBAC about your disclosure.
We’ll let you know within 28 days if your disclosure doesn’t comply with the requirements under the Act.
If you want to dispute this, you can use our complaints handling process.
With some disclosures, we may need to report it to Victoria Police to investigate.
We also may need to do something based on what you disclose, such as take action against the person you’ve made a disclosure about.
A welfare manager:
We’ll only appoint a welfare manager if:
We may appoint an employee or contractor as a welfare manager.
If you work in the public sector, we’ll also ask you to access the Employee Assistance Program.
After we notify IBAC about your disclosure, they’ll assess if it should be shifted to the next stage of the process.
The next stage of the process is to work out if it the disclosure should now become a public interest complaint.
IBAC may seek more information from you or us to work this out.
If IBAC determines it’s a public interest complaint, they will choose to either: