Revenue NSW has the power, in certain circumstances, to recover overdue debts, including unpaid fines, directly from the bank accounts of defaulters. Revenue NSW has had this power in respect of fines debts since 1998 when the Fines Act 1996 (Fines Act) commenced.

In the early years, a staff member manually issued garnishee orders to banks. From around 2013, the process was assisted by electronic transmittal of garnishee orders to banks.

Since 2016, the system for issuing garnishee orders, which we refer to in this report as the garnishee order system (GO system), has involved the use of technology that assists Revenue NSW to issue high volumes of garnishee orders on a daily basis. The extent of ‘automation’ involved in the GO system has varied over that time.

Since 2018, Revenue NSW has also had the power to issue garnishee orders to recover State debts under the State Debt Recovery Act 2018 (SDR Act), and it used the GO system for that purpose between March 2018 and March 2020.

Key findings:

• Revenue NSW’s conduct in operating the GO system to recover fines debts from January 2016 to March 2019 was contrary to law within the meaning of s26 of the Ombudsman Act, as it did not comply with the Fines Act.
• Revenue NSW’s conduct in operating the GO system to recover fines debts from March 2019 to March 2022 was wrong within the meaning of s26 of the Ombudsman Act, as the system was defective in that, even if it is possible that lawful decisions were being made, the GO system did not provide decision-makers with a clear and complete basis for those decisions, and did not clearly and fully record those decisions and evidence the decision-making process.