1.9Under what body does your death review team sit? Describe the benefits or challenges to this arrangement | The Team is established pursuant to the Coroners Act 2009 (NSW) and reports directly to NSW Parliament, that is, the Team does not report directly to a Minister. The Team is an agency within the NSW Department of Justice.
There are no specific benefits and challenges to this arrangement.
| The DFVDRU sits within the Office of the State Coroner embedded within the Department of Justice and Attorney General. The DFVDRAB is an independent body that is supported by the DFVDRU. | The family and domestic violence fatality review team are employees of the Office of the Ombudsman and operate under the delegated authority of the Ombudsman. This arrangement has a number of benefits, including: the capacity to undertake major own motion investigations into issues associated with family and domestic violence fatalities; operating with the powers of the Office of the Ombudsman (including the powers of a Royal Commission); peer and management expertise and support available to a team as part of a large office; and the scale and scope economies that would not be available to a very small stand-alone team. The Ombudsman is an independent and impartial statutory officer. The Ombudsman is responsible to the Parliament and does not report to the government of the day or a particular Minister. | N/A | The position of Senior Research Officer (Domestic Violence) is embedded within the SA A Right To Safety (ARTS) agenda (see attachment 1). The position therefore is embedded within the ARTS Governance Structure (See attachment 2) and reports directly into the ARTS Chief Executive Group and is informed by the Service Provision and Protection working groups. The position is funded through the Office for Women and based in the Coroners Court. This is a formal partnership arrangement.
Benefits:
-
Access and reporting to the State Executive e.g. Minister and Chief executives
-
Being embedded within the state agenda give the review legitimacy and context
-
The Coronial process is independent and therefore conflict of interest does not arise as it may in a multiagency review team
-
Ability to build the capacity of the Coronial process to encompass DV
-
Ability to influence the Coronial process while it is alive and therefore provide submissions regarding prevention/service provision aspects.
-
Ability to access expertise across Government and nongovernment agencies through collaboration with the ARTS working groups.
-
Ability to provide feedback regarding emerging trends/practice issues to key Government and Nongovernment service providers through the working groups.
-
The review work contributes to the work of the Coroner’s Office but is also embedded in the policy arm of the state and therefore has influence beyond recommendations.
Challenges:
Resources this is resource intensive work and timeliness of review can be dependent on resource availability
The partnership in SA is very strong and effective, if that partnership was not strong there could be conflict of interest at times for the researcher.
|
Working under the auspices of the coroners’ jurisdiction to investigate reportable and reviewable deaths, and by virtue of the coroners’ legislated focus on prevention, the VSRFVD is enabled to examine family violence‐relate deaths to effect change. The strengths of this approach are that:
-
family violence related deaths meet the definition of a reportable death under the Coroners Act 2008 (Vic);
-
coroners have a range of powers to compel information;
-
the coroner’s death investigation process provides an opportunity to obtain direct insight into the circumstances that precede a family violence related incident;
-
the CCOV is a specialist independent inquisitorial court which ensures an open and transparent review;
-
the legislative framework enables the coroner to make comments and recommendations on an matter connected with the death including public health or safety; and the legislation requires public statutory authorities and entities to respond to the coroners’ recommendations, which must be published.
|
1.10What is the staffing and resource model for domestic and family violence death review functions in your jurisdiction? Is this model adequate? What changes, if any, would you recommend to improve your staffing and resource model? | The Team is constituted by a secretariat of two: a Manager and a Research Analyst. The Team is comprised of 12 government, two nongovernment representatives and two sector experts. Nongovernment representatives are entitled to minimal remuneration. The Team has protected and recurrent funding of $500,000 annually. |
