Justice bureaucrats to no longer publicly report on performance

The latest annual report from the Department of Justice and Attorney-General (DJAG) revealed bureaucrats will stop publicly reporting their performance in the next Service Delivery Statement on dispute resolution, victims of crime assistance or body corporate and community management.

The move means staff no longer need to reveal how well they are performing when it comes to clearing backlogs or processing claims at the next state budget in June 2019.

However, the performance measures will still be “reported internally”, and in DJAG’s next annual report.

Performance reporting measures are set by the department’s director-general, David Mackie.

A spokeswoman for Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath said the combined budgets for the four frontline areas no longer appearing in the budget papers comprised less than 4 per cent of the department’s budget.

“As such, they are not a good indicator of efficiency or effectiveness from a whole-of-department budget perspective,” she said.

“The department is still required to comply with value-for-money principles, and monitors performance for all business units, including these service delivery areas.”

DJAG’s overseas travel data revealed Court of Appeal president Walter Sofronoff and his spouse spent the most, racking up a bill of $24,863 travelling to Paris and Rhodes during the Hellenic Australian Lawyers Association conference, which was held in Greece.

Chief Justice Catherine Holmes and her spouse spent $16,475 during their trip to Tokyo last September to attend the LAWASIA (Law Association for Asia and the Pacific) conference.

Despite a backlash from patrons after the government’s launch of the compulsory ID scanning in pubs and clubs in safe night precincts last year, it was revealed the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation received just six complaints relating to potential breaches.

Elsewhere in the report, figures revealed backlogs in the Coroners Court overall have doubled in the last five years.

It also had one of the worst backlogs of any court in the last financial year, with 17.73 per cent of cases in the system older than 24 months - significantly more than its predicted target of just 5 per cent.

In the Magistrates Court, more than 16 per cent of criminal law cases are considered to be backlog cases, whilst bureaucrats reported a 9 per cent backlog of civil cases.

In the Children’s Court, there is a 16 per cent backlog of civil cases - double the agency’s predicted target of eight per cent.

In the Land Court, the backlog indicator of cases older than 24 months was 14 per cent - 4 per cent higher than the agency’s predicted target.

The District Court set itself an ambitious zero backlog target for appeals last year, but failed to meet it - reporting a backlog of 11.4 per cent for civil appeals, and a backlog of 7 per cent for criminal appeals.

Visits to vulnerable children by the Public Guardian’s Community Visitors fell below the agency’s own targets.

And Community Visitors failed to meet the 90 per cent target of visiting vulnerable children in line with “the designated visiting schedule.”

They also did not hit their target of visiting 80 per cent of vulnerable children in “visitable homes”, such as a mental health facility or disability centre, in line with “the designated visiting schedules.”

Asked if she was happy with the performance of the courts and Public Guardian’s Office, a spokeswoman for Ms D’Ath said an extra Supreme Court Justice and extra District Court Judge were being appointed.

“There are always elements outside a court’s control – availability of witnesses, for example, can lead to delays – but we know we can improve the delivery of justice to Queenslanders by providing these extra positions,” she added.

“The Office of the Public Guardian achieved unprecedented levels of frontline service delivery in 2017-18, with more visits than ever before made to vulnerable children.

“Community Visitors made 34,242 visits to 8607 vulnerable children and young people, which is a 5 per cent increase on the number of visits, and a seven per cent increase in the number of children visited from 2016-17.

“OPG has also raised more issues on behalf of children and young people - and resolved more of those issues than ever before in their history and that of the agency’s predecessor, the Commission for Children, Young People and the Child Guardian.

“The office continues to look for innovative and cost effective ways to expand services to keep up with demand.”