Operating environment and associated challenges

By proactively identifying the department’s operating environment and associated challenges, the department is well placed to develop and implement strategies to mitigate them. The operating environment includes the following challenges:

• An ageing and growing population which places pressure on the volumes and types of intervention strategies
• Improving and maintaining public confidence in the justice and industrial relations systems in an environment of increasing public scrutiny and community expectations
• Responding to community diversity and the vulnerability of people in delivering services to provide fair and equitable access to all our clients, particularly when they are involved as victims of crime or as witnesses in court proceedings
• Providing appropriate assistance to those people with mental illness, intellectual disability and cognitive impairment who are increasingly coming into contact with the justice system, because traditional responses may not address the underlying causes of the offending behaviour.
• The influence social problems, such as alcohol and substance abuse, family and community violence, have upon the number and type of offences the criminal justice system has to handle and the ways in which the justice system responds to the causes of crime.
• Developing innovative and coordinated responses to provide equitable access to justice for Indigenous Queenslanders and to address the continuing overrepresentation of Indigenous people in the justice system
• Balancing the implementation of public sector wages policy and enterprise bargaining agreements with the current fiscal environment is a continuing priority
• Changes to regulatory responsibilities and frameworks arising from the Council of Australian Government’s reform agenda relating to workplace health and safety national harmonisation, national electrical trades licensing and the national industrial relations system for the private sector
• Maintaining equitable access to high quality services and facilities and providing sufficient access to services in regional, rural and remote areas in a state that is rapidly growing, geographically decentralised and increasingly multicultural.