Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 1 Hansard (18 February) . . Page.. 65 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

As the 2001/02 financial year was a year in which we saw a change of government, the annual reports for that year were predicated under directions and priorities set by a Liberal government, while the outcomes had to take into account the priorities of the incoming Labor government. It was clear to members of the committee that it was difficult to marry what was set out at the beginning with what was achieved at the end, and as a result the recommendations provided by the standing committee reflect this. The committee spent most of its time focused on the structure of the report rather than on a comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of policies or programs that had been implemented during that financial year.

The committee, as I said, was more concerned with the quality of the reporting. We looked at issues such as the annual and financial reporting regime, which we see is designed to encourage rigorous and analytical business performance and provide a reporting framework for baseline performance against key areas such as equity, diversity or regulatory services.

The reporting regime is described and defined in the Chief Minister's annual report directions of May 2002 and the Financial Management Act. This is aimed at encouraging rigorous statutory reporting, but the committee has observed that instead it provides a highly prescribed and contrived reporting that makes it difficult for the reader to obtain a well-analysed picture of the strategic achievements, including major political, economic, business or human resources challenges that confront senior management. It is difficult to find how well the challenges have been handled and what impacts such matters have on the overall health of the organisation, its business and any changes being proposed for the future.

Compliance with the Chief Minister's directions is often simply that. Compliance does not necessarily give adequate indications of accountability and performance. Extensive information of things done dominates the report, and you often need very close and detailed examination to expose real business performance or issues that are a challenge to the organisation.

It could be said that the analysis of the reports of the Urban Services Department was nothing more than a frustrating search through several different places to find co-related information and data. It is the view of the Planning and Environment Committee that the way in which we deal with annual reports should be reviewed by this Assembly, and we have recommendations to that end. We feel that this is a process that should be more rigorous and should be done by overarching committees, rather than committees such as the Planning and Environment Committee.

I would like to highlight one of the problems we confronted. We were asked to deal with the reports of the Urban Services Department which, because of the change to the administrative arrangements, includes housing. Yet officially no member of the Community Services and Social Equity Committee was asked to look at housing, which is now an area that falls more rightly within that committee's purview.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .