Federal police have been told to improve their redundancy protocols. 

Australian Federal Police (AFP) has been advised to provide more redundancy training to prevent future breaches of tax laws and enterprise agreements, according to an investigation conducted by the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI). 

Although no corrupt conduct was found, the investigation revealed that there were sloppy practices within the AFP in terms of handling restructuring and redundancies.

The ACLEI investigation, named Operation Calder, was launched following a referral by an AFP member in 2019 about allegations that two appointees may have colluded to provide redundancies to two other appointees to which they were not entitled.

During the investigation it was discovered that a position was made redundant by delimiting it, but it was recreated not long afterwards, ignoring the rule related to genuine redundancies that are meant to be jobs that no longer need to be done.

“Ultimately, the business case to create the new coordinator position was prepared by the remaining [program] coordinators and approved by management,” the investigation report says. 

“While their actions appear to have contributed to a sequence of events that resulted in the recreation of the position, the evidence indicates that Appointee B was not responsible for the recreation of the position.”

The investigation concluded that although there was evidence of ignorance about how redundancies should be carried out, there was no corrupt conduct. 

The report stated that “while Operation Calder did not identify evidence of corrupt conduct, it identified a lack of awareness of the legal and policy framework governing redundancy and restructure set out in the Income Tax Assessment Act and ELEA 2016-2019. The investigation also highlighted improvements that could be made to the AFP senior leadership’s decision-making and record-keeping practices”.

In response to the investigation report, the AFP released an updated ‘Better Practice Guide on Workforce Adjustment’ and a checklist in 2020, which explained the tax and integrity risks that arise from what the report calls ‘contrived cases of redundancy’. 

The report recommended that the AFP include specific content from the guide and checklist in training programs for decision-makers and senior leaders.

The AFP says it accepts the ACLEI’s recommendation that further guidance be given to AFP senior executives on redundancies and restructuring.