Deborah Glass (born 1959) is an Australian lawyer, who has been the

Victorian Ombudsman Ombudsmen in Australia are independent agencies who assist when a dispute arises between individuals and industry bodies or government agencies. Government ombudsman services are free to the public, like many other ombudsman and dispute resoluti ...

since March 2014. A lawyer by profession, she spent her formative years in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, before taking her career overseas to

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

, and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. From 2008 to 2014, Glass was the deputy chair of the

Independent Police Complaints Commission The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) was a non-departmental public body in England and Wales responsible for overseeing the system for handling complaints made against police forces in England and Wales. On 8 January 2018, th ...

(IPCC) in the United Kingdom. She was also one of the IPCC's ten operational Commissioners, in which capacity she had joint regional responsibility for

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and the South-East.

Early years

Glass was born in 1959 in

Bega, New South Wales Bega () is a town in the south-east of New South Wales, Australia, in the Bega Valley Shire. It is the economic centre for the Bega Valley. Place name One claim is that place name ''Bega'' is derived from the local Aboriginal word meaning "bi ...

, and raised in Melbourne. She attended

Mount Scopus Memorial College , motto_translation = , location = 245 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Melbourne, Victoria , country = Australia , coordinates = , pushpin_map = Australia Melbourne , pushpin_i ...

and then

Monash University Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university has a ...

, where she obtained her BA in 1980 and

LLB Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...

in 1982.

Career

Glass practiced law briefly in

, before relocating to

in 1985 to work for

Citicorp Citigroup Inc. or Citi (stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomer ...

, a US

Investment Bank Investment is the dedication of money to purchase of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort. In finance, the purpose of investing is ...

. In 1989 she was appointed to the

Securities and Futures Commission The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong is the independent statutory body charged with regulating the securities and futures markets in Hong Kong. The SFC is responsible for fostering an orderly securities and futures market ...

, where she became Senior Director and was instrumental in raising standards in the investment management industry. She then moved to London in 1998 where she became Chief Executive of the Investment Management Regulatory Organisation, which under her stewardship was successfully subsumed into the London-based

Financial Services Authority The Financial Services Authority (FSA) was a quasi-judicial body accountable for the financial regulation, regulation of the financial services industry in the United Kingdom between 2001 and 2013. It was founded as the Securities and Investmen ...

. She also worked as an

Independent custody visitor An independent custody visitor is someone who visits people who are detained in police stations in the United Kingdom to ensure that they are being treated properly. Prisoner escort and custody lay observers carry out a similar function in relation ...

between 1999 and 2005. In 2001, Glass was appointed to the

Police Complaints Authority This is a list of notable authorities, agencies and similar bodies that are responsible for investigating or responding to complaints about police. Asia Hong Kong *Independent Police Complaints Council India * Police Complaints Authority (In ...

, and in 2004 became a Commissioner with the

(IPCC). She was the Commissioner responsible, among other things, for London, and for many high-profile criminal and misconduct investigations and decisions involving the police. These included decisions in relation to the police response to the

News International phone hacking scandal The News International phone hacking scandal was a controversy involving the now-defunct ''News of the World'' and other British newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch. Employees of the newspaper were accused of engaging in phone hacking, police b ...

phone-hacking affair, the

death of Ian Tomlinson Ian Tomlinson (7 February 1962 – 1 April 2009) was a newspaper vendor who collapsed and died in the City of London after being struck by a police officer during the 2009 G-20 summit protests. After an inquest jury returned a verdict of ...

during the London G20 protests in 2009, the decision to launch an independent investigation into the aftermath of the

Hillsborough disaster The Hillsborough disaster was a fatal human crush during a football match at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, on 15 April 1989. It occurred during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in the ...

, and the

Plebgate "Plebgate" (also known as "Plodgate" and "Gategate") was a British political scandal which started in September 2012. The trigger was an altercation between Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell and police officers on duty outside Downing Street. ...

affair. In 2012 Glass was awarded an

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

for her service. She left the IPCC in March 2014, having completed a 10-year term with the organisation, which then published her personal critique of the police complaints system in England and Wales. Glass returned to Australia in 2014 and was appointed by the state government as Ombudsman Victoria for a 10-year fixed term. Glass was awarded Monash University Faculty of Law's Distinguished Alumni Award in 2016.

Publications

Some of Glass's key investigations as Victorian Ombudsman have been: * Investigation into Department of Health oversight of Mentone Gardens, a Supported Residential Service (April 2015) * Investigation into the rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners in Victoria (September 2015) * Investigation into public transport fare evasion enforcement (May 2016) * Investigation into the management of complex workers compensation claims and WorkSafe oversight (September 2016) * Investigation into the transparency of local government decision making (December 2016) * Investigation into the management of maintenance claims against public housing tenants (October 2017) * Implementing OPCAT in Victoria: report and inspection of the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre (November 2017) * Investigation into the financial support provided to kinship carers (December 2017) * Investigation of a matter referred from the Legislative Council on 25 November 2015 (March 2018) * Investigation into child sex offender Robert Whitehead's involvement with Puffing Billy and other railway bodies (June 2018) * OPCAT in Victoria: A thematic investigation of practices related to solitary confinement of children and young people (September 2019) * WorkSafe2: Follow-up investigation into the management of complex workers compensation claims (December 2019) * Investigation into review of parking fines by the City of Melbourne (September 2020) * Investigation into the detention and treatment of public housing residents arising from a COVID-19 'hard lockdown' in July 2020 (December 2020) * Investigation into the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions’ administration of the Business Support Fund (April 2021) * Investigation into how local councils respond to ratepayers in financial hardship (May 2021) * Investigation into decision-making under the Victorian Border Crossing Permit Directions (December 2021) * Investigation of a matter referred from the Legislative Council on 9 February 2022  Part 1 (July 2022) * Operation Watts, a joint investigation into allegations of serious corrupt conduct involving Victorian public officers, including Members of Parliament

References

External links

Official Victorian Ombudsman Website

About the Victorian Ombudsman

Monash Alumni Stories - Deborah Glass
{{DEFAULTSORT:Glass, Deborah 1959 births Living people 20th-century Australian lawyers Monash University alumni Ombudsmen in Australia Lawyers from Melbourne Public servants from Melbourne Australian Jews Australian Officers of the Order of the British Empire 21st-century Australian lawyers People educated at Mount Scopus Memorial College