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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Tuesday, 24 August 2004) . . Page.. 4012 ..

whether the quality and the standard of the reports are coming up and use that as a benchmark, rather than just forcing all departments to go through the process.

In suggestion 16, the auditor suggested that the directions be amended to require agencies to disclose in their annual reports the discretionary quasi-judicial administrative powers of any statutory office holders. The government disagreed, saying that it was an amazingly big issue and the scope of the recommendation is so broad that potentially it would capture all discretionary decisions and would probably mean naming two-thirds of the public sector. The committee agreed with the government that the suggestion was simply too broad in that vein.

Suggestion 24 was that the directions be amended to require agencies to include in their annual reports the financial statements of all entities over which they have control. The government disagreed, saying that those entities publish their own annual reports. The committee again agreed with the government in that regard, but suggested that there be appropriate cross-referencing in the annual reports to all entities so that people who wanted to follow the trail could do so easily.

I turn to suggestion 35. The auditor suggested that the Chief Minister’s Department should decide whether chief executives may annex to their annual reports the reports of public authorities that fall outside the scope of the act. The government disagreed with that. The committee accepts that chief executives should be responsible for their agencies in the manner in which they report on those matters.

The last suggestion was suggestion 37, which was that consideration be given to the preparation of model annual reports as a practical aid. The government disagreed, saying that it would require quite large resources to do so. The committee agreed that the annual report directions should identify matters that should be included in the annual reports, but did agree with the government that the chief executives must be responsible for the way in which information is presented. These reports are from departments to their ministers. I think the intent of the Auditor-General’s suggestion could be supported. Again, we would suggest that the next public accounts committee keep a watching brief on that.

The committee has made three simple recommendations. The first is that the public accounts committee of the Sixth Assembly keep a watching brief. The second recommendation is that there should be some trial of independent quality assurance. The third one asks the government to reconsider suggestions 3 and 13, to which it has disagreed.

I thank members for their participation in the report and the secretary for putting the report together and the way in which she supports the committee. She has again done a good job.

MS MacDONALD (11.42): I would like to make a couple of brief comments. As Mr Smyth has said, this report has three recommendations. The Auditor-General made 38 suggestions. The government did not agree with a few of those suggestions and the committee, for the most part, agreed with the government’s position on those things.

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