Assessments

The LECC conducts an assessment of all complaints made directly to it in order to identify whether the LECC will exercise its investigative functions under Part 6 of the Act, or whether the complaint will be referred to the NSWPF or NSWCC for their action.

The LECC also conducts an assessment of all notifiable complaints made to the NSWPF and NSWCC in order to determine whether the LECC will exercise its statutory functions, or whether it agrees with the decision to investigate (or decline to investigate) the complaint.

Oversight

The LECC independently reviews finalised misconduct investigations in order to ensure those investigations have been conducted reasonably and satisfactorily, with appropriate outcomes.

The LECC also undertake real-time monitoring of ongoing misconduct investigations conducted by the NSWPF or the NSWCC pursuant to s 101 of the LECC Act. This real-time monitoring may include:

• being present as an observer during interviews conducted by police officers for the purposes of the police investigation, and
• conferring with those police officers about the conduct of the misconduct investigation, and
• requesting the nominated contact for the purposes of the misconduct investigation to provide reports on the progress of the investigation.

Critical Incident Monitoring

The LECC has the power to independently oversight and monitor the investigation of critical incidents by the NSWPF if it decides that it is in the public interest to do so. The LECC’s policy is to monitor all declared critical incidents. The LECC may cease that monitoring if it is later considers that it is no longer in the public interest.

A critical incident is an incident involving a police operation that results in death or serious injury to a person.  The LECC’s monitoring of critical incident investigations provides assurance to the public and the next of kin that police investigations into critical incidents are conducted in a competent, thorough and objective manner. 

Audit

The LECC must keep under scrutiny the systems within the NSWPF and NSWCC for dealing with misconduct matters.  This includes a requirement to inspect the records of those agencies.