Page 4280 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 20 November 1990
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There is another reason why the proceedings took a little longer, and I guess it was a bit of a disappointment to me, as chairman of the committee, particularly considering that last year the committee made specific recommendations in relation to the provision of information to the committee. In fact it recommended that the Administration make more information available to the Estimates Committee prior to its deliberations rather than immediately before the start of questioning. There seemed to be a little bit of confusion as to the availability of that information, and some departments unfortunately were getting their information together on that general area just prior to the hearings. That was a disappointing factor from our point of view.
Another problem, of course, was that budget paper No. 5 this year did not provide information at subprogram level. So clearly that had to be made available as well. There was a limited time available in some cases for that information at subprogram level to be given to the committee. In fact there were at least two occasions when the committee members expressed concern that considerable amounts of information were provided just prior to the hearings. Consequently, the committee decided that there would be a short delay so that it would have a chance to study the information that was provided to it. A couple of the report,s recommendations flow from that, and one is that future budget papers contain financial information at subprogram level. I will be interested to hear the comments of the Chief Minister and Treasurer on that matter.
Another thing we were concerned about was the possibility of making the budget papers themselves a little more user friendly. That was something that came across during our discussions with people that appeared before us. The committee found budget paper No. 2 particularly helpful as a basic document, as it provided a good overview of the budget and its process and the various major initiatives. In fact it is quite possible that the budget papers themselves are not widely promoted within the general community. However, it seems to me, and the members of the committee, that budget paper No. 2 is one that probably has more readable information in it, and the committee suggests that that particular paper be a little more widely distributed, because it is quite readable and an easy document with which to consider the budget process.
Another matter that we looked at related to the distribution and sale of the first two sets of budget papers with the aim of avoiding large stocks of surplus budget papers remaining in future years. That is an important issue, particularly when we are seeking to reduce the amount of paper that we are producing. The committee also recommended that a questionnaire be included in the budget papers, accompanied by publicity to encourage users of the papers to complete it. We also suggested that there
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