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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 1 Hansard (13 February) . . Page.. 63 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

I intend to extend this citizen focus to the area of freedom of information. The government will remove the requirement for individual ACT citizens to pay application fees under this act. I wish to ensure that we remove all unnecessary procedural barriers to the reasonable access of information by citizens in this territory. We will review the operation of the fee-free FOI changes in due course to ensure that the system is not being abused.

The government has also recently supported the passage of the Public Access to Contracts Act 2000. This act requires the disclosure of the terms and conditions of all contracts valued above $50,000 and the provision of a public outline of any confidential clauses. The use of commercial-in-confidence clauses in future should be based on absolute necessity, not mere preference. The maintenance of high standards of accountability means that it is important to recognise and acknowledge mistakes when they occur and to immediately take action to deal with such mistakes and learn from them.

As I again acknowledged today in the house, the redevelopment of Bruce Stadium included a number of mistakes that the government has already acted to rectify. The Auditor-General found that the requirements of the Financial Management Act were not fully understood, even within Treasury, and that some delegations and financial management guidelines were unclear. These guidelines and delegations have now been reviewed and revised. In addition, the government has accepted all the recommendations of an independent review of the structures and operations of the Central Finance Unit and the Superannuation and Insurance Provision Unit. The recently appointed Probity Adviser has also been undertaking awareness training of senior executives across the public service on the requirements of the Financial Management Act.

The initiation of the transactions that were subsequently found to be illegal was a direct consequence of the lack of a full understanding of that act, coupled with work pressures in that area of Treasury. In recognition of these staffing pressures and to ensure that we have the necessary skills to undertake essential functions, my government will be allocating at least an additional $300,000 per annum to Treasury from the coming financial year to support the recruitment of additional key staff.

In recognition of the need to enhance management skills more generally, the current program under which one full-time MBA scholarship is awarded each year will be replaced by several short course scholarships directed at specific areas of management skills such as governance.

Other areas where the government has already acted in response to lessons learnt from the Bruce Stadium redevelopment include a full revision of the cabinet handbook, with particular focus on ensuring the quality of cabinet submissions and the ACT purchasing policy and principles guidelines. To provide added assurance in the improvement of procurement outcomes for the territory, we have announced our intention to establish a government procurement board. Pending passage of the necessary legislation, the board will be established on an interim basis. The board's roles will include the review and clearance of the proposed procurement strategies for major projects.

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