Page 2067 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 May 2009
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Mr Jeremy Hanson—and I would like to particularly thank committee secretary Sandra Lilburn for her support and patience and also for putting this report together.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Public Accounts—Standing Committee
Report 2
MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo) (11.48): I present the following report:
Public Accounts—Standing Committee—Report 2—Report on Annual and Financial Reports 2007-2008, dated 30 April 2009, together with a copy of the extracts of the relevant minutes of proceedings.
I move:
That the report be noted.
I am pleased to present the report. Our report covered 17 annual and financial reports of government agencies for the 2007-08 financial year. Given that we are short of time, I will not list all of the agencies that we covered, but I note that the provision of meaningful operational and financial information by government to parliament and to 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 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.
We examined the annual reports for their compliance, where applicable, with the Chief Minister’s annual report directions 2007-10, legislative and other requirements as raised in individual agency reports. Our first three recommendations in fact concern compliance with the Chief Minister’s annual report directions.
In reporting, we considered mainly the issues of accountability, governance and effective reporting. In our 27 recommendations, the themes were reporting, sustainability and the usefulness in particular of the reporting. We made a couple of recommendations about the role of the Auditor-General and the importance of adequate funding for the Auditor-General. I would like to record PAC’s appreciation of the Auditor-General’s work.
The report did not come together without a lot of hard work, cooperation and professionalism on the part of many people. I would like to conclude by thanking my committee colleagues, Ms Burch and Mr Smyth, the relevant ministers and accompanying departmental and agency staff and members of governing boards for providing their time, expertise and cooperation, the committee office, and, in particular, our very, very hard-working secretary, Andrea Cullen. There are 27 recommendations. Given that we are short of time, I will not go through them. I commend the report to the Assembly, and I think it is possible that my colleagues may wish to say more on the subject.
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