Monday 2 September 2019 marked the 10 year anniversary of the Inspectorate’s inception. The Local Government Inspectorate is currently the only dedicated integrity agency for local government in Australia.
Originally known as the Local Government Investigations and Compliance Inspectorate until May 2018, the Local Government Inspectorate was founded by the current Chief Municipal Inspector David Wolf.
The Inspectorate was created to provide local government in Victoria with a dedicated integrity agency to reflect the importance of community confidence in their councils.
Over the past 10 years, the Inspectorate handled:
- 4200 complaints and allegations
- 732 investigations – averaging 50 per year and up to 100 in election years
- 63 prosecutions – just under 10% of investigations
- 90 audits and examinations
Major achievements have included informing policy and legislative reform, delivering recommendations to improve council operations and integrity, and playing a key role in assessing and investigating breaches of the electoral provisions of the Local Government Act at council elections.
The Inspectorate has built networks within the sector and developed strong collaborative relationships with other Victorian integrity agencies such as IBAC, Victorian Ombudsman and Victorian Auditor-General’s Office.
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