Santo Santoro (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

The Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs has agreed to the recommendations of the Australian National Audit Office. Only 122 agreements were examined in the audit. While there were issues found, work has already commenced, I can advise the Senate, on a number of initiatives to address these. This work started before the ANAO had even finished its fieldwork. ANAO found that appropriate funding agreements were in place for almost all grants that it looked at. While some issues were found with the Emergency Relief Program in particular, FaCSIA has undertaken action to address these with new funding agreements for all grants put into place before 1 July 2005.

FaCSIA has undertaken a number of reforms aimed at improving its performance management framework. The ANAO considers that these reforms have the potential to deliver useful performance information. The ANAO found that 94 per cent, all but six per cent, of the funding agreements used appropriate agreements. In relation to acquittals, 94 per cent had sufficient information to satisfy performance requirements.