Page 5713 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 November 2010
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ACT government agencies. The audit specifically focused on whether the selected agencies had delivered the initiatives for which they received funding in the 2007-08 and 2008-09 budgets, noting that some funded initiatives were intended to be delivered over a number of years. The committee received a briefing from the Auditor-General in relation to the report on 12 August 2010 and a submission from the government on 28 September 2010.
The committee has resolved to make no further inquiries into the report.
Statement by chair
MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo): Pursuant to standing order 246A, I wish to make a statement on behalf of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
The Government Procurement Act 2001 requires agencies to provide the public accounts committee with a list of “reportable contracts” every six months. Reportable contracts are defined, with some exceptions, as procurement contracts over $20,000 that contain confidential text. Agencies provide the committee with the names of contracting parties, the value of the contract and the nature of the contract.
The committee is aware that the information chief executives provide in relation to “reportable contracts” is readily available in the public domain on the ACT government contracts register.
The Minister for Territory and Municipal Services has informed the committee that consideration is being given to changing the process for the reporting of “reportable contracts”. As an interim step in this process, the committee again welcomed receiving the list of reportable contracts for this period in one consolidated report. The committee believes that there is value in the provision of a consolidated report for the six-monthly reporting periods. However, the committee is of the view that the purpose of scrutiny would be served by a report that combines the two current six-monthly reporting periods. The committee wrote to the responsible minister in June 2010 to convey its views on this matter.
The responsible minister has subsequently advised that, while he welcomes the committee’s willingness to reduce the frequency of reports on reportable contracts, he believes that the new register renders the reporting of reportable contracts redundant. As a consequence, the minister intends to change the legislation to remove the requirement for chief executives to report to the committee on reportable contracts.
The public accounts committee believes that this information should be available to all members and the committee will continue to table these lists until such time as the legislation is amended. I therefore seek leave to table the list of reportable contracts for the period 1 April 2010 to 30 September 2010, as received by the public accounts committee.
Leave granted.
MS LE COUTEUR: I table the following paper:
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