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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 9 Hansard (21 August) . . Page.. 2647 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

performance criteria where there has been a change in departmental priorities or more appropriate methods of performance measurement have been identified. Again, the act contains no provisions to accommodate this.

The amendments proposed in this bill allow responsible ministers to amend, by instrument, a department's performance criteria. To ensure that appropriate accountability is maintained, these amendments also provide that the instrument varying the department's performance criteria will be a notifiable instrument and will therefore be available for scrutiny on the ACT Legislation Register.

Further, the amendments provide that any changes made to a department's performance criteria must be made in a form which facilitates comparison with the budget. This will ensure that the current principle is maintained of annual financial reports being presented in a form that facilitates comparison with the budget.

The report of the Select Committee on Estimates of April 2001-it says here "2002" and I am assuming that that is a misprint and it meant 2001-recommended, at recommendation No 3, that the act be amended "so that appropriations made by the Commonwealth to the territory for specific purposes may be adjusted as if the appropriations had been specified to be specific purpose payments". Amendments proposed in this bill to section 17 of the act implement this recommendation.

The Financial Management Act currently provides that money may be paid out of the territory bank account only if authorised by a warrant signed in accordance with an appropriation. The intent of these provisions is to ensure that there is a central control mechanism that empowers the Treasurer to limit the transfer of money from the territory banking account and thereby ensure compliance with appropriations.

The use of these warrant provisions has, however, led to inconsistencies occurring within the act. This is due to other provisions within the act, such as those dealing with payments to the Commonwealth in respect of GST liabilities, which allow for payments to be made out of the territory banking account without appropriation. As a warrant can only be signed in accordance with an appropriation, a warrant cannot therefore be issued for these payments, making it legally impossible for money to leave the territory banking account for these payments. These inconsistencies have necessitated the Department of Treasury reviewing and evaluating the ongoing value and relevance of a warrant as a cash control mechanism.

The use of warrants has been seen as adding little extra in value as a cash control mechanism, and has long since been abandoned in favour of administrative controls, in a number of jurisdictions, including New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory. In the ACT, the Department of Treasury imposes strict administrative control procedures to ensure that cash is not released from the territory banking account unless it is in accordance with an appropriation or other provisions of the Financial Management Act. These procedures provide for the segregation of duties between individual Treasury officers and for the undertaking of a series of cross-checks before any money is released from the territory banking account.

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