What is a voluntary PID?

Good government relies on public officials speaking up when they witness or become aware of wrongdoing in the public sector. If you are a public official and you see or become aware of what you think may be serious wrongdoing, it is important that you report it. 

When a public official reports serious wrongdoing, their report will be a public interest disclosure if it has certain features. These features are set out in the Public Interest Disclosures Act 2022 (PID Act). The PID Act provides you with certain protections if you make a public interest disclosure. It also requires agencies to take appropriate action when they have received a report of serious wrongdoing.

A PID must be made by a public official. The PID Act defines a public official as:

1. a person employed in or by an agency or otherwise in the service of an agency
2. a person having public official functions or acting in a public official capacity whose conduct or activities an integrity agency is authorised by another Act or law to investigate
3. an individual in the service of the Crown
4. a statutory officer
5. a person providing services or exercising functions on behalf of an agency including a contractor, subcontractor or volunteer
6. if an entity, under a contract, subcontract or other arrangement, is to provide services on behalf of an agency or exercise functions of an agency in whole or in part—an employee, partner or officer of the entity who is to be involved in providing the services in whole or in part, or who is to exercise the functions
7. a judicial officer
8. a member of Parliament including a Minister
9. a person employed under the Members of Parliament Staff Act 2013.

A PID is a report of serious wrongdoing. There are 6 categories of serious wrongdoing in the PID Act:

1. corrupt conduct
2. serious maladministration
3. a government information contravention
4. a privacy contravention
5. a serious and substantial waste of public money
6. a local government pecuniary interest contravention.

Read the guide

For a report to be a PID, it must be received by certain recipients. PIDs can be made to a person’s manager, the head of their agency or any other agency and to a disclosure officer within their agency or any other agency. If a public officials chooses to not make a PID to their own agency, they can choose to make it to an integrity agency. 

PIDs can also be made to a Minister or a Minister’s office (put only if in writing) and in very limited circumstances, to a journalist or Member of Parliament. 

‘Agency’ is defined in section 16 of the PID Act to mean any of the following:

• a public service agency
• a group of staff comprising each of the following services, or a separate group of those staff:

• the NSW Police Force
• the Teaching Service of New South Wales
• the NSW Health Service
• the Transport Service of New South Wales

• a statutory body representing the Crown
• an integrity agency
• a public authority whose conduct or activities are authorised to be investigated by an integrity agency under another Act or law
• a state-owned corporation or its subsidiaries
• a Local Government Authority
• a Local Aboriginal Land Council
• the Department of Parliamentary Services, the Department of the Legislative Assembly and the Department of the Legislative Council.

The PID Act classifies the following agencies as ’integrity agencies’: 

• the Ombudsman
• the Auditor-General
• the Independent Commission Against Corruption
• the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission
• the Inspector of the Independent Commission Against Corruption
• the Inspector of the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission
• the Secretary of the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (when exercising certain functions under the Local Government Act 1993)
• the Privacy Commissioner
• the Information Commissioner.

Each integrity agency is typically responsible for investigating one of the types of serious wrongdoing under the PID Act, for example corrupt conduct is investigated by the ICAC and serious maladministration by our office. This does not mean that a PID has to be made to the integrity agency which typically investigates that type of serious wrongdoing. 

Read the guide

Your report will be assessed, and the agency that received your PID will decide how they will deal with it. They will keep you up to date with what is being done and assess the risk of detrimental action being taken against you. They may choose to refer your PID to another agency such as an integrity agency, but before doing so they must assess the risk of detrimental action. 

If you want to know more about the process the agency will undertake when dealing with your PID, you should read the relevant agency’s PID policy. An agency’s PID policy should be available on their website. 

For more information about how voluntary PIDs should be dealt with, read the NSW Ombudsman guideline.