Improving client service must be a key focus of our efforts. Client Satisfaction surveys and Values Creation Workshops, where DIMA staff must actively listen to the views and concerns of clients, will be conducted in the early part of this year. This will allow us to better understand the differences between client groups and their needs and will allow us to respond to systemic concerns that clients raise.

DIMA’s National Office in Canberra is a long way from the service counters where we interact with our clients. We have therefore also asked all of the senior executives in DIMA to spend some time in operational or service delivery parts of the Department in the first half of this year to get first-hand experience in client service.

The draft Client Service Charter released last year for public comment is being finalised at the moment to take account of the largely positive feedback. It will set out clearly the expectations for both clients and DIMA staff. Better arrangements are being put in place for handling client feedback and providing clients with choice about how they connect with the Department.

Every month the Secretary recognises a member of staff or team through the Secretary’s Award for Service Excellence (ASCE) on the basis of positive client feedback.

We have further built on improvements made last year to health service delivery for immigration detainees, in particular at Baxter with other centres to progressively follow over coming months.

All detainees are screened for mental health problems using two internationally recognised screening tools on admission and they are routinely and regularly screened after that. Mental health plans are developed for any detainee who screens positive. We are currently finalising the membership of the Detention Health Advisory Group, which will provide expert professional health advice on health service standards and research projects to improve health outcomes for people detained.

Physical improvements at Baxter and other immigration detention centres have been made, well beyond the recommendations made in the Palmer Report. The Baxter Plan, launched by the Minister in September 2005, included development of the Interim Visitor Processing Centre, which opened in December, and sporting facilities. Self-catering options have improved and further design options to open up the closed compounds, develop a new primary health care facility and a new central cafeteria have been developed.

Considerable progress has been made in developing a new, holistic, case management framework for the case management of clients with exceptional circumstances. In conjunction with case management, DIMA is developing a ‘community care’ pilot in Sydney and Melbourne to trial and evaluate a model where case management is supported by access to additional community services to vulnerable clients.

Appropriately skilled and qualified case management staff have been recruited, trained and are now working in our Sydney and Melbourne Offices. Our compliance activities have been properly criticised and will continue to be criticised in those cases which come to light where people have been improperly determined to be unlawful and detained.

Clearly, DIMA officers exercise extraordinary powers and we have to be extraordinarily careful in our decision-making where the outcome can be the deprivation of liberty. We are making committed efforts to ensure decisions to detain are only made where there is no realistic alternative, and that they are subject to ongoing review. We will continue to place a strong focus on training for staff in these operational roles, and in ensuring there are strong accountability mechanisms in place.

This is especially the case where we are faced with people who are not easily identified, either because they do not wish to cooperate, have mental health issues or for other reasons. These difficulties do not release us from our obligation to make each decision on the basis of law and the facts and to review those decisions regularly.