The Western Australian State Government has been hit with a wave of accountability issues. The latest from the social housing portfolio involves the loss of an estimated $2.5 million of state funds. At the same time the state government is battling the fallout of  $500,000 issue with a WA Trade Commissioner to Japan, and the ongoing issues with and investigations into the City of Perth. Now there is the release of a report by the Local Government Professionals Australian WA and the University of WA recommending mandatory training in leadership, ethics and financial management: https://www.lgprofessionalswa.org.au/Lgmawa/News/Report_reveals_WA_Local_Government_CEOs_at_breaking_point.aspx

The WA Public Sector Commissioner’s Instruction No 8 of 2012 establishes the ‘requirement for public sector bodies to develop their own code of conduct and to provide training to their employees and board members on accountable and ethical decision-making  (AEDM). This mandatory training has been in place since 2008. That is, since 2008 all heads of state government public sector bodies have been required to ensure all staff and board members are trained.

The training though, can involve considerable expenditure if provided as face to face training. Sadly many agencies have opted for online training requiring participants to make ‘multiple choice’ responses. We at Oars Across the Waters believe this ‘black and white’ method cannot be effective in ‘grey area’ decision making; that is the decision making involved when reporting suspected misconduct.

Since 2008 Oars Across the Waters has provided highly effective face to face, conversational  AEDM training, which precisely follows the Public Sector Commissioner’s requirements. Integrity risks are identified on a training day and later support addresses them. The training provides an ‘inoculation’ approach to integrity risks.

If you need help in setting up more effective AEDM please contact us http://managersassistance.com.au/contact-form-7-id53-titlecontact-form-1contact/