Page 1983 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 24 October 1989
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sitting days. Members will be aware that under current arrangements statutory bodies are generally required to report either within six months of the end of a financial year or in some cases within six months of the end of a calendar year. This is required either by the legislation which establishes the body or by section 30(A) of the Interpretation Act.
This Act also requires an explanatory statement to be tabled in the Assembly if this timetable is not met. The Government believes that six months should remain the period in which such bodies are required to report. A shorter time frame than this will result in reports whose preparation has been hurried, especially in the case of large organisations.
The impact of this would be reports of a lower standard, which could not fully achieve their objective of adequately informing the Assembly of the Government's activities. This will be the case particularly in relation to the auditing of accounts. Three months will, in many cases, not provide sufficient time for information to be gathered, which would allow a properly conducted audit to be carried out.
Put simply, Mr Speaker, the Government argues that a three-month reporting requirement will have the opposite effect to that intended by the committee. It will result in the provision of less, rather than more, information both to the Assembly and to the public at large.
The Government is sympathetic to the committee's view that 15 sitting days is too long a period between receipt of a report and its tabling in the Assembly. The 15 sitting days rule was inherited from Commonwealth legislation and may reflect the fact that the Commonwealth Parliament sits on four or five days in a week rather than the practice of three days adopted by this Assembly. However, the Government believes that six sitting days may not provide adequate time for a report to be printed following its submission to a Minister. Accordingly, the Government will take steps to require that a maximum of nine sitting days be allowed between receipt of a report by a Minister and its tabling in the Assembly.
Recommendation 5 of the select committee's report proposed that all executive departments and non-statutory authorities furnish reports within three months of the end of the financial year and that they be tabled within six sitting days of receipt by the relevant Minister.
The Government agrees that activities of executive agencies and non-statutory bodies should be reported to the Assembly. It is envisaged that each executive agency will report separately to its Minister and that this report will be tabled in the Assembly. This would be in addition to the statutory requirement that the head of Administration report to me on the activities of the branch of the
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