Shoddy rostering at Canberra's only jail, the Alexander Maconochie Centre, has caused high rates of unplanned leave, vacant posts, and cancelled training sessions, an audit has revealed.
With custodial officers taking an average of 49 unauthorised whole-shift absences and 28 part-time shift absences per month, between January 2024 and June 2025, the ACT Auditor-General Ajay Sharma's report found ACT Corrective Services rostering arrangements failed to meet the needs of the jail, staff, and detainees.
To keep the jail safe and operational during periods of unplanned leave, corrective services made decisions such as re-allocating custodial officers from posts related to education, programs, and activities, to priority posts.
A "rover" or escort post at the jail's Special Care Centre accommodation unit was de-manned 38 times, and education officer posts were de-manned 32 times, programs posts were de-manned 32 times and health posts were de-manned 31 times.
The report noted on some days, both education officer posts or both programs officer posts were vacant, meaning no educational services or rehabilitation programs could run for detainees on those days.
"This negatively impacts detainee rehabilitation and does not support the overall goal of the AMC as a human rights prison," Mr Sharma said.
Short staffing at the jail also led to custodial officers working longer shifts at overtime rates and 27 per cent of pre-planned training sessions being cancelled due to "operational requirements".
One arrangement, approved until January 2028, allowed staff to work 16 12-hour shifts within a 22-day period while other arrangements allowed officers to work 84 hours in seven days.
The Auditor-General's report further found ACT Corrective Services was not treating unauthorised leave as employee misconduct and had "managed" only three officers for taking unauthorised leave.
In cases of unauthorised absences, staff were requested to provide satisfactory documentation within three days of returning to work, but the audit report found this rule had been relaxed to six weeks.
This was described as "problematic" as accounting for multiple of these absences in a six-week period might risk staff being underpaid or overpaid.
"ACT Corrective Services has not developed and implemented sufficient or effective policies and procedures to support the broader operational planning and administration of custodial officer rosters," Mr Sharma said.
He said limited policies or procedures for basic issues such as compliance with the public sector enterprise agreement 2023-2026, staff rotation, shift swaps and staff availability and leave, might contribute to "perceived unfairness and inequity and mistrust".
The Auditor-General's report made seven formal recommendations to address the problems including implementing specific and tailored rostering policies, documenting roster patterns, and reviewing fatigue management and flexible working arrangements.
