Page 2321 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 12 August 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
published separately by the owning directorates; and an annual reporting requirement for agencies to list the legislation for which they are responsible, as it would repeat the administrative arrangements already available on the ACT legislation register.
Additionally, the 2014 directions have been amended with a revised reporting structure that is logical in terms of flow and sequence. The directions now include the requirement to report against the following sections: performance reporting, providing an overview of agency operating environment along with performance reporting in terms of economic, social and environmental aspects of its operations; governance and accountability, providing information on the governance arrangements of the agency and internal and external accountability mechanisms for transparent and independent assessment of agency operations, processes and systems; legislation-based reporting, requiring agencies to report information against the requirements arising out of several legislative instruments including, but not limited to, the public interest disclosure, freedom of information, human rights and territory records; human resource management reporting, relating to development initiatives and programs to attract, retain and develop staff for organisational effectiveness and efficiency in service delivery; and financial management reporting, providing detailed financial analysis of agency performance.
The directions also include amendments to the declarations about public authorities made under sections 12 and 16 of the Annual Reports (Government Agencies) Act. Under section 16, I may declare that an entity established under an act is a public authority, which is required to prepare an annual report. Compared to last year’s declaration, the following changes are made: the Chief Coroner is no longer declared a public authority for the purposes of annual reporting—the Coroners Act 1997 was amended to provide that the Chief Coroner will report directly to the Attorney-General and is not required to produce an annual report; and the Mental Health ACT Official Visitors established under the Mental Health (Treatment and Care) Act 1994 and the Radiation Council, established under the Radiation Protection Act 2006 are declared public authorities and are annexed reports of the Health Directorate annual report.
The annual report directions were provided to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts for consultation in accordance with section 8 of the Annual Reports (Government Agencies) Act 2004. The committee responded on 18 June 2014 with no comment on the 2014 annual report directions. Annual reports must be tabled within three months of the end of the financial year and will be tabled on 25 September 2014.
The next stage of the review will complete the implementation of the review measures through the 2015 directions process and will focus on development and implementation of legislative amendments that will allow for: changes to the Annual Report (Government Agencies) 2004 Act for the provision of whole-of-government annual reporting to be introduced; further development of revised performance measures and accountability indicators; the introduction of different reporting arrangements for directorates and other reporting entities, particularly where requirements are not relevant to small reporting entities; and consideration being given to altering the timeframes associated with the presentation and tabling of annual reports, with an extension of one month to the end of October.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video