Integrity Oversight Victoria 

Act: Integrity Oversight Victoria Act 2011 (Vic), formerly the Victorian Inspectorate Act 2011 (Vic).¹

Established: The Victorian Inspectorate was created under this Act as part of Victoria's 2011-2012 integrity-system reforms, the same reforms that created IBAC; its exact commencement date was not independently confirmed in the sources cited here. It was renamed Integrity Oversight Victoria -- and its Act correspondingly renamed -- with effect from 10 February 2025.

Purpose: Integrity Oversight Victoria oversees the conduct and performance of Victoria's own integrity agencies -- including IBAC, the Victorian Ombudsman, and the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner -- rather than investigating public-sector corruption or maladministration directly itself. It is an oversight body for other oversight bodies.

Powers conferred under the Act

Integrity Oversight Victoria monitors compliance by the bodies it oversees with their own governing legislation, handles complaints made about those bodies, and independently reviews their exercise of coercive and covert powers (such as IBAC's use of surveillance devices and telecommunications interception). It reports to Parliament on its findings. These are oversight and reporting powers directed at other integrity agencies, not powers to investigate ordinary public-sector administrative action itself -- that remains the Ombudsman's and IBAC's own jurisdictions respectively.

Is it a prosecuting authority?

No. Integrity Oversight Victoria's role is to check that other integrity bodies are acting within their own statutory powers, not to investigate or prosecute offences itself. No specific leading case is cited here on this body's own jurisdictional limits.

How it relates to the other Victorian bodies

This is the "who watches the watchmen" body in Victoria's integrity system: it exists specifically because a body with IBAC's coercive powers needs its own independent check, distinct from and in addition to Parliament's own oversight. It does not do merits review, general maladministration investigation, or corrupt-conduct investigation itself -- those remain VCAT's, the Ombudsman's and IBAC's roles respectively.

How this compares with WA's Parliamentary Inspector and NSW's Inspector of the LECC

WA's Parliamentary Inspector of the CCC and NSW's Inspector of the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission each oversee a single named integrity body. Victoria's design is broader: Integrity Oversight Victoria oversees several integrity agencies at once (IBAC, the Ombudsman, and OVIC among them), not just IBAC. A student should not assume the three oversight bodies have identical scope just because each plays an analogous "watches the watchers" role in its own jurisdiction.

Self-check

• Have I used the current name (Integrity Oversight Victoria), while recognising that a source written before 10 February 2025 will call it the Victorian Inspectorate?
• Have I stated its function as overseeing other integrity bodies, not investigating maladministration or corruption directly?
• Have I distinguished its broader multi-body oversight role from WA's and NSW's single-body inspector models?