Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Committee on Public Accounts and Audit I am pleased to present the following reports: Report 452 Natural disaster recovery; Centrelink telephone services; and Safer Streets program, review of Auditor-General reports Nos 24 to 50 2014-15 and report 453: Development of the Commonwealth performance frameworkand I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report.

Leave granted.

I present report 453 from the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit entitled the Development of the Commonwealth performance framework. This report constitutes the JCPAA's first report into its oversight of the Department of Finance's development and advancement of the Public Management Reform Agenda following the passage of the Public Governance Performance and Accountability Act.

The Commonwealth Performance Framework is part of a broader reform agenda and is designed to help improve the performance of Australian government entities while also providing stakeholders with the ability to better assess entity performance over time. Through the inquiry, the committee sought to ensure that the rules, directions and guidance that underpin the framework facilitated scrutiny and provided clarity to entities regarding performance monitoring and reporting expectations.

We found, overall, that the framework was robust and was an improvement on the previous system. We note that many performance information requirements have now been elevated to legislative rules or have been made official directions from the Secretary of the Department of Finance. We commend Finance on this achievement.

We did, however, find several ways the framework could be improved. We recommended that Finance provide better examples in its guidance to entities and that Finance develop a mechanism to centrally monitor, report and evaluate both the framework and the broader Public Management Reform Agenda.

We also considered several iterations of a proposed direction prepared by Finance seeking to change the way performance reporting information is presented to the parliament in portfolio budget statements or the PBS. Several public hearings on this matter were held and the committee sought to ensure that detailed performance information was required in the interests of transparency and to assist parliamentary consideration of the budget.

Accordingly, we recommended that the direction require:

We further recommended that Finance investigate ways that Senate estimates committees might be provided with updated draft corporate plans, conditional on budget appropriation, following the tabling of each budget proposal.

The committee will focus on entity compliance with Finance's directions and guidance, in this area, in the future and will seek to confer with Senate estimates committees to ensure that there is an improvement rather than a reduction in the quality of information made available to members and senators through the budget consideration and estimates processes. More broadly, the JCPAA will continue to oversee the development of the public management reform agenda and looks forward to continuing to work with Finance in this area over the coming years.

I would like to thank my fellow committee members and my deputy chair, the member for Charlton, and would also like to acknowledge the support of the secretariat. I would also like to thank the Department of Finance and the Australian National Audit Office for their focused engagement during the committee's inquiry.

Finally, I extend my thanks to the other agencies, organisations and individuals who contributed to the inquiry through submissions or by providing evidence at the public hearings. I commend the report to the House.

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