Queensland Ombudsman's Annual Report 2024-25 published

Queensland Ombudsman’s Annual Report 2024–25 published

The Office of the Queensland Ombudsman tabled in Parliament its Annual Report 2024–25 (annual report) on Friday 19 September 2025.

The Office’s annual report, highlights achievements for the financial year ending 30 June 2025. This report assesses the financial and non-financial performance against the objectives and performance indicators set out in the Strategic Plan 2023–27.

The Queensland Ombudsman Anthony Reilly said we continued to deliver services that improve public administration evidenced by an increase in complaints for this period.

“As well as an 8% increase in contacts to our Office this year we found an 11% increase in the number of finalised complaints,” Mr Reilly said.

“Our 971 finalised investigations led to 185 recommendations, also an increase, to improve administrative actions of Queensland agencies.

“Some of those outcomes are reflected in our Casebook 2025, presenting case studies with outcomes achieved for Queenslanders.”

A few highlights

In September 2024, the Office implemented amended powers under section 12A of the Ombudsman Act 2001 (Ombudsman Act), which allows us to investigate non-government entities that deliver services to the public.

Two major investigative reports were published conducted under the Ombudsman Act on his own initiative, which included:

• August 2024 – Forensic Disability Service – second report. A review of the implementation of recommendations made in the 2019 Forensic Disability Service report.
• April 2025 – Preventing harm to children with disability in Queensland – Report 1: Department of Education. An investigation into the effectiveness of current public sector agency practices and procedures - Learning from Kaleb and Jonathon’s story. This is the first report in a multi-agency investigation.

We also offered a range of aids to support agencies to continuously improve their administrative processes, including in August 2025 a new online training module to assist in good decision-making for public sector employees at no cost.

Inspector of Detention Services Act 2022

In its second full year of operation, under the IDS Act, we tabled our first annual operational report, conducted inspections and published reports about prisons, watch-houses and detention centres to promote the humane treatment of detainees and the prevention of harm. Key publications included:

• August 2024 – Cleveland Youth Detention Centre inspection report: Focus on separation due to staff shortages
• September 2024 – Cairns and Murgon Watch‑houses inspection report: Focus on the detention of children
• March 2025 – Southern Queensland Correctional Centre inspection report
• June 2025 – Palen Creek Correctional Centre inspection report.

Further highlights

“We continued our work as the oversight agency for the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2022 (PID Act) with a 35% increase in enquiries to our Office,” Mr Reilly said.

“Overall training and webinar attendance also increased by 12%.

“The PID Self Assessment audit gave agency chief executive officers the opportunity for their agencies to measure compliance, identify areas for improvement, and let us know of training and supports required.

“The Office received 186 submissions for the audit from 204 eligible agencies, totalling a 91% completion rate.”

Accessibility and inclusion continued to be core values for the Office with support aids, such as Plain English, easy read and video formats available on our website.

Our community engagement continued focusing on key demographics for the Office, including Australian First Nations people.

The official copy of the annual report, as tabled in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland can be accessed from the Queensland Parliament website.