Review of Department of Justice: Main points

The Independent Review Group on the Department of Justice found the top five issues were:

1. A closed, secretive and silo driven culture.

2. Significant leadership and management problems.

3. Ineffective management processes and structures to provide strong strategic oversight of the key agencies both to hold them accountable and to ensure their effectiveness is maximised.

4. A Management Advisory Committee (MAC) that is neither sufficiently focused on key strategic priorities that impact on the Department and its key agencies nor ensuring that emerging issues with agencies or with political consequence are identified and managed proactively.

5. Relationships with key agencies tend to be informal and unstructured without strong central management from the Department.

The key recommendations are:

1. A programme for fundamental and sustained organisational and cultural change and renewal.

2. A change in the leadership and management routines, systems and practices to underpin both the performance of the Department and key agencies.

3. An upfront commitment to additional skilled and specialised resources and training and development programmes to lead and drive the change programme.

4. A change in the scope and approach of the MAC to provide better strategic management and support.

5. A structured approach to how agencies and key relationships are managed to hold them more accountable and drive better performance across the broader justice landscape.