Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013

The Ombudsman must, as soon as practicable after the end of each financial year, prepare and give to the Minister, for presentation to Parliament, a report on the operation of this Act during that financial year.

See also section 34C of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901, which contains extra rules about annual reports.

The report must include:

in relation to each agency, statements of the following:

the number of public interest disclosures received by authorised officers of the agency during the financial year;

the kinds of disclosable conduct to which those disclosures relate;

the number of disclosures allocated to the agency during the financial year;

the number of disclosure investigations that the principal officer of the agency conducted during the financial year;

the time taken to conduct those disclosure investigations;

the actions that the principal officer of the agency has taken during the financial year in response to recommendations in reports relating to those disclosure investigations; and

a statement of the number and nature of the complaints made to the Ombudsman during the financial year about the conduct of agencies in relation to public interest disclosures; and

information about the Ombudsman’s performance of its functions under section 62; and

information about the IGIS’s performance of its functions under section 63; and

the information covered by paragraphs (a) to (d) as it relates to each of the following periods:

the period from 1 July to 31 December in the financial year, as reported under section 76A, with any updates or necessary corrections or revisions indicated;

the period from 1 January to 30 June in the financial year.

The IGIS’s annual report is also required to include information about public interest disclosures received by the IGIS: see section 35 of the Inspector‑General of Intelligence and Security Act 1986.

The principal officer of an agency must give the Ombudsman such information and assistance as the Ombudsman reasonably requires in relation to the preparation of a report under this section.

Despite subsection (3), the principal officer may delete from a document given to the Ombudsman under that section any material:

that is likely to enable the identification of a person who has made a public interest disclosure or another person; or

the inclusion of which would:

result in the document being a document that is exempt for the purposes of Part IV of the Freedom of Information Act 1982; or

result in the document being a document having, or being required to have, a national security or other protective security classification.

A report under this section in relation to a period may be included in an annual report prepared by the Ombudsman and given to the Minister under section 46 of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 for the period.