In 2005/06 the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) undertook a Strategic Planning Process, with the aim to enhance the quality of service that we provide to our clients, to increase our capacity for systemic advocacy, and to equip the Office with the resilience to meet both internal and external future demands. As a result of this process, the OPG will undergo a restructure and will be making some important changes to how we operate. These changes will come in to full effect by 30th July 2008.

The restructure establishes three branches of the OPG – the OPG Guardianship Branch, the OPG Policy and Advocacy Branch, and OPG Registry.

Within the Guardianship Branch there will be three regional guardianship teams, located at Parramatta (Western Region), Sydney CBD (Southern Region) and Gosford (Northern Region). This branch will be responsible for providing guardianship services to people who are under the guardianship of the Public Guardian. These three regional teams will be headed by the Assistant Director, Operations, who will report to the OPG Director.

A detailed list of which local government areas (LGA's) will be in each region is available here. A map detailing the boundaries of the three regional guardianship teams is also available.

The Policy and Advocacy Branch will be located at the OPG Head Office in Parramatta. The Assistant Director, Policy and Advocacy, will head this branch, which will comprise of the Information and Support Team who will be responsible for community education, information services, community relations, private guardian support, policy and procedure review and development, systemic advocacy, and staff training and development.

The Registry Team will also be located in Parramatta, and will be headed by the Registrar who in turn will report directly to the OPG Director. Registry will continue to be responsible for all incoming and outgoing correspondence, records management and allocation of cases to the respective regional teams.

There has been a lot of careful planning involved to ensure that the changes are made with minimal impact on our clients and stakeholders. About 500 OPG clients will be affected by the changes in the OPG regional boundaries and will therefore have a new team and guardian responsible for their file. We will be writing to each of these clients to explain how the changes will affect them.

This is an exciting time for the OPG, and the changes will provide an enhanced guardianship service to our clients.

For more information contact us.