Today, the Commonwealth Ombudsman, Iain Anderson, published a report about his Office’s latest review of the Australian Federal Police’s (AFP) administration of Part V of the Australian Federal Police Act 1979 (the Act), on professional standards and conduct and practices issues. This report relates to complaints finalised between 1 March 2020 to 28 February 2021.

Part V of the Act sets out the process for how the AFP must record and deal with conduct and practices issues. An AFP conduct issue arises where an AFP appointee may have engaged in conduct that contravenes the AFP professional standards or engaged in corrupt conduct. An AFP practices issue relates to concerns about the practices and procedures of the AFP.

“My Office assesses the AFP’s administration of professional standards complaints, providing assurance to the Parliament and public about the AFP’s complaint management process," Mr Anderson said.

At each review, the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman assesses the AFP’s progress against our previous findings. In this report, the Ombudsman makes 7 recommendations, 13 suggestions and 3 better practice suggestions for improvement. The AFP was receptive to the Ombudsman’s findings, recommendations and suggestions, and undertook to take action to address them.

"Some of the findings in this report relate to ongoing issues my Office identified in previous years,” Mr Anderson said. “This includes findings on the AFP’s performance against timeliness benchmarks, its communication with complainants and the correct identification and categorising of conduct issues.”

“I am pleased to see the AFP has started significant reforms to improve its administration of complaints. My Office will monitor the outcome of these reforms. Our oversight will continue to support the AFP’s work to administer a fair and reasonable complaints process.”

The report can be found on the Commonwealth Ombudsman website here.