Queensland's corruption watchdog's investigation into the embattled Ipswich City Council has found an "unhealthy culture" seeped into the organisation and led to corruption.
A report of the Crime and Corruption Commission's investigation was tabled in parliament on Tuesday, finding Ipswich City Council's culture was allowed to deteriorate to the point where corruption was no longer recognised.
"Significant governance failures and cultural issues that appear to have been occurring over many years and which would not have occurred in an environment in which the values of transparency, accountability and good governance were paramount," the report reads.
"Council policies and procedures were either not followed, or were ignored or circumvented, including by councillors and senior executive employees, resulting in the misuse of council funds and assets."
To date, 15 people connected to council - including two former mayors and a former chief executive - have been charged with 86 criminal offences.
The report finds a "very dominating senior figure" combined with an inner circle of councillors and senior executives who had worked together for a long time and weak policies allowed corruption to occur.
It recommends training all councillors across the state in corruption risks and switching council controlled entities to public to bring them under the CCC's jurisdiction.
The CCC investigation into Ipswich City Council, Operation Windage, found several "senior members" of the council regularly misused their positions for personal gain or to influence decision-making to benefit their associates.
Council's travel expenditure rules were regularly breached and the donations policy was repeatedly contravened.
Officials used personal email accounts to get around right-to-information requests from journalists, and recruitment policies were ignored.
Staff hours and pay conditions were frequently abused and in one case staff were instructed to falsify their time sheets to cover up that they worked excessive hours for which they were not paid.
The CCC made four recommendations:
- All councillors across the state to be trained in how to appropriately behave in their roles and what constitutes corrupt conduct.
- A minimum set of standards be developed to provide a framework for councils, going forward.
- Examine the need for councils to use controlled entities and that councils' controlled entities should be reclassified to bring them within the oversight of the CCC and also subjecting them to the Right to Information Act.
- The use of private emails by councillors for official business be banned.
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