Corruption exposed in SA school system

CORRUPTION within the SA Education Department uncovered in a government review has prompted the opposition to call for urgent action.

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CORRUPTION within the South Australian Education Department uncovered in a government review has prompted the state Liberal opposition to call for urgent action to address misconduct within the state school system.

The Ernst and Young report, commissioned by the state Labor government in preparation for the anticipated Independent Commission Against Corruption, identified 10 areas of corruption risk within the education department.

The report found instances of misconduct, including schools running fraudulent account-keeping books, the hiring of family members for school contracts, and theft as examples of corruption that may be investigated by the state's ICAC.

The "Corruption Readiness Roadmap" warned that South Australia risked mirroring the experience in NSW after the introduction of its ICAC found 22 out of 73 referred education department employees acted inappropriately.

Opposition education spokesman David Pisoni, who obtained the report under freedom of information laws, said the government must urgently release its response to the recommendations made in the report.

"This should be done immediately," he said.

"I don't believe they have responded to this appropriately. If they have responded to the recommendations, let's see it."

He said the report showed that Labor's previous resistance to an ICAC had allowed the corruption risk within the department to flourish.

The report made seven recommendations, including to "undertake a detailed and documented corruption risk assessment", and to assign a senior individual within the department to address corruption within the department.

A government spokeswoman said the fraud cases identified in the review had been "investigated and dealt with".

"Any instances of misconduct are treated seriously by DECD, and, where these occur, prompt action is taken to ensure that these are thoroughly investigated and that where fraud or corruption has occurred, those responsible for are held to account," she said.

"The review identified, from similar agencies interstate, examples of potential risks for public sector agencies and outlined a number of improvement actions to support DECD in its approaches to the prevention of potential fraud and corruption.

"In the light of the review recommendations, DECD has assessed the existing controls and will continue to do so to ensure they meet requirements into the future."

The spokeswoman said all recommendations in the report would be adopted, but was unable to provide details.