A growing number of agencies complying with the NSW Public Interest Disclosures Act 2022 but more needs to be done

The NSW Ombudsman tabled the Public Interest Disclosures (PID) Act 2022: Agency self-assessment audit report 2025 in the Parliament of NSW today. 

Following commencement of the PID Act in 2023, we conducted self-assessment audits in both 2024 and 2025 to test agency compliance with certain key requirements of the PID Act. This report details important findings from these audits.  

The 2024 audit captured baseline information across agencies following implementation of the Act. The second audit showed progress towards greater compliance from 2024 to 2025. 

Key observations  

Agencies told us that: 

• More agencies reported having a PID policy in place this year than in 2024 – up 8 percentage points to 88%. 

• More than half of the agencies that still do not have a policy told us they are actively working to develop one. 

• 80% of agencies reported including information about the PID Act in their employee induction training. 

• 92% of agencies reported having a process in place to meet their annual reporting requirement to our office. 

• There has been an increase in the number of disclosure officers trained, but there is still more to do, with agencies reporting 54% of all disclosure officers have received training to date. 

NSW Ombudsman, Paul Miller, said “It is encouraging to see agencies reporting improvements in many of the key aspects of their PID systems from 2024 to 2025, but there is more to be done. The Act has now been in place for 2 full years. Any agency that has not put in place all the policies, training and other requirements necessary to fully meet their legislative obligations must do so now as a priority.” 

Mr Miller added: “Our Office continues to support agencies to fully comply with the Act, and the results will also help to inform where we focus our attention, including as we now move to commencing a program of more intensive compliance audits of particular agencies”. 

Read the report