Page 718 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 1 May 2007
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The provision of meaningful operational and financial information by government to parliament and the public is a fundamental component of the accountability process. Annual reports are the principal and most authoritative way in which chief executives and chairpersons account to the Legislative Assembly and other stakeholders, including the public, for the ways in which they have discharged their statutory and other responsibilities and utilised public funds over the preceding 12 months.
The committee held public hearings on 29 and 30 November and 6 and 7 December 2006 and heard from ministers and accompanying departmental and agency officers and members of the governing boards. The committee examined the annual reports in relation to their compliance, where applicable, with the Chief Minister’s annual report directions, legislative and other requirements as raised in individual agency reports.
In reporting, the committee considered and assessed the issues raised in the annual reports within the context of accountability in governance and its subsequent effective reporting by public sector agencies. The committee’s report focuses on significant issues of interest raised during the inquiry process. The committee’s report makes 22 recommendations. Amongst these recommendations were the following: that the government ensure that appropriate governance arrangements are clearly established at the outset of the shared services centre, which provide a clear understanding and appreciation of the roles and responsibilities of the relevant participants in the government’s framework, to safeguard the dual accountability of participants both for their individual organisations and for the shared arrangements; that the government ensure that the calculation errors affecting superannuation contributions are corrected as a matter of urgency; that the Department of Treasury include in future annual reports a discussion on levels and rates of charging and taxing within the territory, and that this should include a comparative analysis that recognises the different tiers of the territory and state governments and takes into account any economies of scale from the division of these functions.
A further recommendation is that the government ensure that audited financial statements of entities in which the territory has a controlling interest be tabled in the Legislative Assembly for the ACT. Finally, for the purpose of this presentation, the committee recommended that the government publish the audited financial report for TransACT Communications as soon as it becomes available and submit this report to the committee rather than waiting until the end of the year.
Mr Deputy Speaker, these recommendations are designed to address important issues in the accountability and management of the government. In particular, the committee makes several recommendations to the government to improve its reporting to the committee itself. Unfortunately, one of these recommendations arose from the failure of the government to have available for the committee all of the relevant audited financial reports.
The committee also felt it would benefit from additional information in future reviews, including the audited financial statements of entities in which the government has a controlling interest and also a comparative assessment of rates and charges in the ACT. This information is important in establishing the financial position of the
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