Ombudsman Richard Bingham delivers long-awaited report into education department's handling of rape case at a public school SA Ombudsman Richard Bingham Source: Supplied AN investigation by the State Ombudsman has criticised the Education Department for not following its own policy to inform parents about a sexual abuse case at a public school. Ombudsman Richard Bingham today released his long-awaited report into concerns raised about a rape at a western suburbs school which was kept from parents for two years. Also today, it was revealed two senior Education bureaucrats had left the department , while a further four employees would to be counselled by the Chief Executive. The case was also the subject of the Debelle royal commission which reported in July. South Australian Education Minister Jennifer Rankine. Both reports are critical of the Education Department's handling of the case. Mr Bingham's 23-page report, tabled in Parliament, found the Department did not follow its own policies about informing parents of the 2010 rape of a young girl by the out-of-school-hours care director at the western suburbs school, despite the fact other children could be at risk. It also gave incorrect legal advice that a suppression order was in place which meant other parents could not be told. Former SA education minister Grace Portolesi. In responding to a draft of the report, the department "accepted and agreed with" Mr Bingham's findings. It will report back to him by the end of the year on changes it is making to improve its handling of such cases in future. The school's OSHC director was charged with unlawful sexual intercourse with a person under 14 on December 2, 2010. He was committed for trial in June, 2011, and convicted in February, 2012. Mr Bingham found it was "unacceptable that the affected community was not informed by the department about this sexual assault, particularly as there is a policy in place for informing the parents whose children used the OSHC service when risk factors (for other children) are present." "In the absence of advice about the sexual assault, if children had been acting out of character or unusually during the time of (the OSHC director's) employment, parents would be unaware of possible causes for their child's behaviour or what behaviour to look out for," he writes. At no time was there a court ordered suppression order in place. It would have been possible to inform them (parents) without infringing the privacy of the child as set out in the policy and information sharing guidelines. Mr Bingham noted the department had informed parents of previous cases at other schools and it was "not clear to me why the departmental officers considered that a different approach should have prevailed." He found the school's governing council was responsible for the employment of the OSHC director and should have been left to make a decision about informing parents of his offence. However, Mr Bingham directs some criticism towards the decision by governing council members not to inform parents even after the department corrected its legal advice regarding the suppression order in June last year. "This decision amounts to an administrative error by the governing council," he writes. The department's error (in its advice) was only corrected after considerable delay, once the true situation was discovered. The Ombudsman's investigation followed a complaint from Danyse Soester, whose children attended the western suburbs school where the offence occurred. Ms Soester said the report "is just a big confirmation again that we've got a department that has acted like a law unto itself for a long time and real change needs to happen." Ms Soester renewed calls for a dedicated Education Ombudsman to hear future complaints. Mr Bingham began his investigation in June last year but suspended it while the royal commission was underway.