The quality of financial statements in the education and communities cluster continues to improve with fewer reported misstatements over the last three years. The financial statements of all agencies within this cluster received unqualified audit opinions. The Department of Education and Communities has 24 performance targets for early childhood through to tertiary education. Seven of these are either not being achieved or unlikely to be achieved.

The quality of financial reporting in the Finance and Treasury cluster continues to improve with fewer reported misstatements over the last three years. The financial statements of all cluster agencies received unqualified audit opinions, except for the New South Wales Self Insurance Corporation.

The quality of agencies’ financial statements in the Family and Community Services cluster continues to improve with the number of misstatements identified during audit steadily decreasing over the past five years. The financial statements of all cluster agencies were submitted on time and received unqualified audit opinions. Family and Community Services finds it difficult to fill all funded caseworker positions, with an average ten per cent vacancy rate for the past five years.

For the second consecutive year, the General Government and Total State Sector Accounts received an unqualified auditor’s opinion following more than a decade of qualifications. The quality and timeliness of financial reporting across the NSW public sector has continued to improve. Compared to previous years, there were fewer errors in agencies’ 2013–14 financial statements submitted for audit and used for whole-of-government financial reporting.

Today the Auditor-General of New South Wales, Grant Hehir, released his Volume One Report to Parliament for 2014. The observations included in this report are designed to inform readers of common findings from the 2013 financial and performance audits so agencies and audit committees can use them to identify issues that may be relevant to their organisations.

The report includes a review on the Building the Education Revolution and outcomes of his financial audits on NSW Government agencies for Education and Communities 2009-10. Whilst the Department of Education appears to have achieved its key objective of rapidly constructing school facilities, costs were higher than business as usual and the preferences of local communities were not always met.

The report includes comments on NSW Treasury and agencies in the finance and superannuation sectors. The New South Wales public sector superannuation funds’ investments were $42.2 billion at 30 June 2010, up from $38.5 billion in 2009. Investment returns reached 14.5 per cent in 2009-10. This is a significant improvement on the investment returns of up to negative 18.4 per cent at the peak of the global financial crisis in 2008.