Council investigated in Integrity Commission report revealed

The councillor who did not want to be named, noted the Integrity Commission report released on February 28.

"I note that the finding showed that a Tasmanian council lacked proper procedures, policies and governance surrounding the appointment of several key personnel within that council," the councillor said.

The report tabled on February 28 found an unnamed council had shown a lack of proper recruitment policy and procedure for eight recruitments it had investigated.

The report also said a lack of legislative support and model policy made it probable that this type of misconduct risk was not isolated to one council.

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A letter addressed to the councillor from the Integrity Commission seen by The Examiner confirmed the council involved in the investigation was the West Tamar Council.

"The Commission has also contributed significant resources to West Tamar Council through Investigation Smithies," the letter said.

Last month, Mayor Christina Holmdahl refused to directly answer whether the Integrity Commission report released on February 28 was the West Tamar Council.

When the report was handed down, the Integrity Commission chief executive Michael Easton said the investigation had revealed little or no documentation on why the recruitments were made.

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The Local Government Act gives a council's general manager the power to make direct appointments, which Mr Easton said meant hiring without any sort of competitive recruitment process.

"We are not querying that. What we are querying is how those decisions are made, and how they are documented - direct appointments clearly can be at least perceived as being problematic, if not actually being problematic," Mr Easton said in February.

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"We'd like to see a template policy developed that would allow all councils to deal with direct appointments and then recruitments more generally, consistently across Tasmania."

Two weeks ago, the West Tamar Council's general manager Rolph Vos resigned. The council had refused to answer questions on why he had resigned.

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