Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Committee on Public Accounts and Audit, I present the committee's report entitled: Report 469: Commonwealth Performance Framework: Inquiry based on Auditor-General’s reports 31 (2015-16), and 6 and 58 (2016-17)—Report, December 2017.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—I notice the subtle gesticulations from the Christmas Grinch over there, the Leader of the House, to make this a short speech and I have crossed out most of the recommendations. But there is a reason that duty calls and we have to do this now: an important statutory review of the PGPA Act is underway and this report needs to be made available to them. The report sets out the findings of the committee's inquiries based on the following audit reports: No 58, Implementation of the annual performance statement requirements; No. 6, Corporate planning in the Australian public sector; and No. 31, Administration of Higher Education Loan Program debt and repayments. I'll just touch on a couple of the recommendations. As for the rest, those avid readers with a sleeping disorder can read them at home at any time. But there is one report in particular that I think is very important, and potentially transformative, that we want to draw the public's attention to. The Commonwealth Performance Framework generally requires Commonwealth entities to produce corporate plans, portfolio budget statements, annual reports and annual performance statements. Improving this framework to ensure a line of sight between the use of public resources and the outcomes achieved by Commonwealth entities has been a long-term focus for many years of the committee.

And the important recommendation that I want to draw the House's attention to is to build on the momentum and the implementation of the overall Commonwealth Performance Framework. The committee has recommended an important change to the PGPA Act be made by the government, and that is that the act would be amended to enable mandatory annual audits of the performance statements by the Auditor-General. Mandatory audits may not sound exciting, but they're very important because, as the House would know, the Commonwealth has great confidence in the financial statement auditing of public entities because the Auditor-General must audit all of the performance information sitting behind financial statements. But that's not the case in relation to non-financial performance reporting. And so what this change means is that over the next few years as it is introduced—if the government accepts the recommendation—then the parliament and the public will be able to have far greater confidence in the veracity and robustness of the non-financial performance reporting.

Moving towards a mandatory system similar to financial auditing will take some time to enable entities to build the capability and also to establish effective processes. The committee seeks to establish the framework now to enable this transition to commence, and we will consult, of course, with entities on the timing of rollout. In the meantime the Auditor-General—the ANAO—should continue to build its audit methodology so that it's positioned to audit annual performance statements in a similar way as occurs with regard to financial statements. In plain English, what that means is all of the outputs of agencies—this parliament can have proper confidence in the data which underpins them.

I've skipped out most of the recommendations. As I said, you could read it at home. But the other important thing that I would just draw the House's attention to is we've also suggested that the government amend the PGPA rule and guidance so that entities' audit committees also should have capability around non-financial performance auditing.

One other thing: in its report the committee also concluded that the Department of Education and Training could improve its performance reporting for the Higher Education Loan Program, and the committee endorsed the ANAO finding that the department and the Australian tax office should broaden the range of program information reported publicly, making a recommendation on this matter.

So I extend my thanks to all members of the committee for their deliberations during this inquiry. I commend the report to the House, and I wish you all merry Christmas.

I move:

That the House take note of the report.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 39, the debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order for the next day of sitting.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present executive minutes on reports 461, 462 and 463 of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit.