The Auditor-General for New South Wales, Margaret Crawford, released a report today on whether the Department of Communities and Justice (the department) effectively supports the efficient operation of the District Criminal Court system.

The audit found that in the provision of data and technology services, the department is not effectively supporting the efficient operation of the District Criminal Court system. The department has insufficient controls in place to ensure that data in the system is always accurate.

The department is also using outdated technology and could improve its delivery of technical support to courts.

The audit also assessed the implementation of the Early Appropriate Guilty Pleas reform. This reform aims to improve court efficiency by having more cases resolved earlier with a guilty plea in the Local Court. The audit found that the department effectively governed the implementation of the reform but is not measuring achievement of expected benefits, placing the objectives of the reform at risk.

The Auditor-General made seven recommendations to the department, aimed at improving the controls around courts data, reporting on key performance indicators, improving regional technical support and measuring the success of the Early Appropriate Guilty Pleas reform. 

The District Court is the intermediate court in the New South Wales court system. It hears most serious criminal matters, except murder, treason and piracy. The Department of Communities and Justice (the Department) provides support to the District Court in a variety of ways. For example, it provides security services, library services and front-desk services. This audit examined three forms of support that the Department provides to the District Court:

• data collection, reporting and analysis - the Department collects data from cases in its case management system, JusticeLink, based on the orders Judges make in court and court papers
• technology - the Department provides technology to courts across New South Wales, as well as technical support for this technology
• policy - the Department is responsible for proposing and implementing policy reforms.

Recent years have seen a worsening of District Court efficiency, as measured in the Productivity Commission's Report on Government Services (RoGS). Efficiency in the court system is typically measured through timeliness of case completion. There is evidence that timeliness has worsened. For example, the median time from arrest to finalisation of a case in the District Court increased from 420 days in 2012–13 to 541 days in 2017–18.

As a result, the government has announced a range of measures to improve court performance, particularly in the District Court. These measures included the Early Appropriate Guilty Pleas (EAGP) reform. One of the objectives of EAGP is to improve court efficiency, which would be achieved by having more cases resolve with a guilty plea in the Local Court.

This audit assessed whether the Department of Communities and Justice effectively supports the efficient operation of the District Criminal Court system. We assessed this with the following lines of inquiry:

• Does the Department effectively collect, analyse and report performance information relevant to court efficiency?
• Does the Department effectively provide technology to support the efficient working of the courts?
• Does the Department have effective plans, governance and monitoring for the Early Appropriate Guilty Pleas reform?

The audit did not consider other support functions provided by the Department. Further information on the audit, including detailed audit criteria, may be found in Appendix two.

The Department is responsible for providing technology to the courts, which can improve the efficiency of court operations by making them faster and cheaper. The Department is also responsible for providing technical support to courtrooms and registries. It is important that technical support is provided in a timely manner because some technical incidents can delay court sittings and thus impact on court efficiency. A 2013 Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development report emphasised the importance of technology and digitisation for reducing trial length.

While the Department may provide technology to the courts, they are not responsible for deciding when, how or if the technology is used in the courtroom.

The Department is using a significant amount of outdated technology, risking court delays

As of April 2019, the whole court system had 2,389 laptops or desktop computers out of warranty, 56.0 per cent of the court system's fleet. The court system also had 786 printing devices out of their normal warranty period, 75.1 per cent of all printers in use. The Department also advised that many of its court audio transcription machines are out of date. These machines must be running for the court to sit and thus it is critical that they are maintained to a high degree. The then Department of Justice estimated the cost of aligning its hardware across the whole Department with desired levels at $14.0 million per year for three years. Figures for the court system were not calculated but they are likely to be a significant portion of this figure.

Using outdated technology poses a risk to the court system as older equipment may be more likely to break down, potentially delaying courts or slowing down court services. In the court system throughout 2018, hardware made up 30.8 per cent of all critical incidents reported to technical support and 41.9 per cent of all high priority incidents. In addition, 16.2 per cent of all reported issues related to printing devices or printing.

From 2017 to 2018, technical support incidents from courts or court services increased. There were 4,379 technical support incidents in 2017, which increased significantly to 9,186 in 2018. The Department advised that some outside factors may have contributed to this increase. The Department was rolling out its new incident recording system throughout 2017, meaning that there would be an under‑reporting of incidents in that year. The Department also advised that throughout 2018 there was a greater focus on ensuring that every issue was logged, which had not previously been the case. Despite these factors, the use of outdated technology has likely increased the risk of technology breakages and may have contributed to the increase in requests for technical support.

Refreshing technology on a regular basis would reduce the risk of hardware failures and ensure that equipment is covered by warranty.

The Department did not meet all court technical support targets in 2017 and 2018

The Digital and Technology Services branch (DTS) was responsible for providing technical support to the courts and the Courts and Tribunal Services branch prior to July 2019. DTS provided technical support in line with a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with the Department. In 2017, DTS did not provide this support in a timely manner. Performance improved in 2018, though DTS fell short of its targets for critical and moderate priority incidents. Exhibit 7 outlines DTS' targets under the SLA.

Critical incidents are particularly important for the Department to deal with in a timely manner because these include incidents which may delay a court sitting until resolved or incidents which impact on large numbers of staff. Some of the critical incidents raised with DTS specifically stated that they were delaying a court sitting, often due to transcription machines not working. High priority incidents include those where there is some impact on the functions of the business, which may in turn affect the efficiency of the court system. High priority incidents also include those directly impacting on members of the Judiciary. 

This audit examined DTS' performance against its SLA in the 2017 and 2018 calendar years across the whole court system, not just the District Court. The total number of incidents, as well as critical and high priority incidents, can be seen in Exhibit 8.

The Department's results against its SLA in 2017 and 2018 are shown in Exhibit 9.

The Early Appropriate Guilty Pleas (EAGP) reform consists of five main elements:

• early disclosure of evidence from NSW Police Force to the prosecution and defence
• early certification of what the accused is going to be charged with to minimise changes
• mandatory criminal case conferencing between the prosecutor and accused's representation
• changes to Local Court case management
• more structured sentence discounts.

More detailed descriptions of each of these changes can be found in the Introduction. These reform elements are anticipated to have three key effects:

• accelerate the timing of guilty pleas
• increase the overall proportion of guilty pleas
• decrease the average length of contested trials.

Improving District Court efficiency is one of the stated aims of EAGP, which would be achieved by having more cases resolve in the Local Court and having fewer defendants plead guilty on the day of their trial in the District Court. The reform commenced in April 2018 and it is too early to state the impact of this reform on District Court efficiency.

The Department is responsible for delivering EAGP in conjunction with other justice sector agencies. They participated in the Steering Committee and the Working Groups, as well as providing the Project Management Office (PMO).

The Department is not measuring the economic benefits stated in the EAGP business case

The business case for EAGP listed nine quantifiable benefits which were expected to be derived from the achievement of the three key effects listed above. The Department is not measuring one of these benefits and is not measuring the economic benefits for five more, as shown in Exhibit 12.

Benefit	Economic benefit (over ten years)	Being measured?
Accelerated timing of guilty pleas	$54.6m
Increased guilty plea rate	$90.7m
Decreased average trial length	$27.5m
A reduction in the delay of indictable matters proceeding to trial	N/A
Increase the number of finalised matters per annum	N/A
Reduction of the current backlog of criminal trials in the District Court	N/A
Reduction in bed pressure on the correction system due to reduced average time in custody	$13.7m
Productivity improvements due to reduction in wasted effort	$53.3m
Bankable cost savings due to jury empanelment avoided	$2.5m

Exhibit 12: The Department's measurement of quantifiable benefits

Key

Measuring

Not measuring economic benefit

Not measuring

While it is too early to comment on the overall impact of EAGP, better practice in benefits realisation involves an ongoing effort to monitor benefits to ensure that the reform is on target and determine whether any corrective action is needed.

The Department is measuring the number of finalised matters per annum and while the Department is not measuring the reduction in the backlog as part of this program, this measure is reported as part of the Department's internal reporting framework. The Department is not monitoring the reduction in delay of indictable matters proceeding to trial directly as part of this reform, but this does form part of the monthly Operational Performance Report which the Department sends to the EAGP Steering Committee.

The Department is not monitoring any of the economic benefits stated in the business case. These economic benefits are a mixture of bankable savings and productivity improvements. This amounts to a total of $242.3 million over ten years which was listed in the business case as potential economic benefits from the implementation of this reform against the total cost of $206.9 million over ten years. The Department is collecting proxy indicators which would assist in these calculations for several indicators, but it is not actively monitoring these savings. For example, the Department is monitoring average trial length, but is not using this information to calculate economic benefits derived from changes in trial length.

The Department is also not collecting information related to the average length of custody as part of this program. This means that it is unable to determine if EAGP is putting less pressure on the correctives system and it is not possible for the Department to calculate the savings from this particular benefit.

While stakeholders are optimistic about the impact of EAGP, not measuring the expected benefits stated in the business case means that the Department does not know if the reform is achieving what it was designed to achieve. Further, the Department does not know if it must take corrective action to ensure that the program achieves the stated benefits. These two things put the overall program benefits at risk.

The Department has not assigned responsibility for the realisation of each benefit stated in the business case. The Department holds the Steering Committee responsible for the realisation of all benefits. Benefits realisation is the process which ensures that the agency reaches benefits as stated in the business case. Assigning responsibility for benefits realisation to the Steering Committee rather than individuals is not in line with good practice.

Good practice benefits realisation involves assigning responsibility for the realisation of each benefit to an individual at the business unit level. This ensures there is a single point of accountability for each part of the program with knowledge of the benefit and the ability to take corrective action if it looks like that benefit will not be realised. This responsibility should sit at the operational level where detailed action can most easily be undertaken. The role of a Steering Committee in benefits realisation is to ensure that responsible parties are monitoring their benefits and taking appropriate corrective action.

The Department advised that it believes the Steering Committee should have responsibility for the realisation of benefits due to the difficulty of attributing the achievement of each benefit to one part of the reform alone. Given the Steering Committee meets only quarterly, it is not well placed to take action in response to variances in performance.

BOCSAR are planning to undertake an overall evaluation of EAGP which is planned for release in 2021. Undertaking this evaluation will require high quality data to gain an understanding of the drivers of the reform. However, data captured throughout the first year of EAGP has proven unreliable, which may reduce the usefulness of BOCSAR's evaluation. These data issues were discussed in Exhibit 5 in Chapter 2, above. Access to accurate data is vital for conducting any program evaluation and inaccurate data raises the risk that the BOCSAR evaluation will not be able to provide an accurate evaluation of the impact of EAGP.

In addition to the BOCSAR evaluation, the Department had plans for a series of 'snapshot' evaluations for some of the key elements of the reform to ensure that they were operating effectively. These were initially delayed due to an efficiency dividend which affected EAGP. In August 2019, the Department commissioned a review of the implementation of several key success factors for EAGP.

The implementation stage of EAGP had clear governance, lines of authority and communication. The Steering Committee, each Working Group and each agency had clear roles and responsibilities, and these were organised through a Project Management Office (PMO) provided by the former Department of Justice. The governance structure throughout the implementation phase can be seen at Exhibit 13.

The Steering Committee was established in December 2016 and met regularly from March 2017. It comprised senior members of key government agencies, as well as the Chief Judge and the Chief Magistrate for most of the duration of the implementation period. The Steering Committee met at least monthly throughout the life of the program. The Steering Committee was responsible for overseeing the delivery of EAGP and making key decisions relating to implementation, including spending decisions. The Chief Judge and the Chief Magistrate abstained from financial decisions. The Steering Committee updated the governance and membership of the Steering Committee as appropriate throughout the life of the reform.

Appendix one – Response from agency
 
Appendix two – About the audit 

Appendix three – Performance auditing 

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Parliamentary Reference: Report number #329 - released 18 December 2019

The report found the clearing of native vegetation on rural land is not effectively regulated and managed. The processes supporting the regulatory framework are weak and there is no evidence-based assurance that clearing of native vegetation is carried out in accordance with approvals. 

In 2014 an expert panel completed a review of biodiversity legislation in NSW. The panel’s recommendations included repealing the Native Vegetation Act 2003, proposing a new Act with the goal of maintaining a healthy, productive and resilient environment for the greatest wellbeing of the community, and recommending that management of native vegetation in the context of existing agricultural management would be assisted and supervised by Local Land Services (LLS).

Following the panel report, the NSW Government undertook major biodiversity conservation and land management reforms which saw the introduction of the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (NSW) and the Local Land Services Amendment Act 2016 (NSW). The reforms commenced in August 2017. The Native Vegetation Act 2003, the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995, the Nature Conservation Trust Act 2001, and parts of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 were repealed.

Under the legislative reforms, the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 and Local Land Services Amendment Act 2016, which amended the Local Land Services Act 2013, aim to ensure a balanced approach to land management and biodiversity conservation in NSW.

A core objective of the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 is to conserve biodiversity at bioregional and state scales. A core objective of the Local Land Service Act 2013 is to ensure the proper management of natural resources in the social, economic and environmental interests of the state, consistently with the principles of ecologically sustainable development.

The integrated package of reforms included:

• new arrangements that allow land owners to improve productivity while responding to environmental risks
• new ways to assess and manage the biodiversity impacts of development
• a new state Environmental Planning Policy for managing impacts on native vegetation in urban areas
• significant investment in conservation of private land
• a risk-based system for regulating human and business interactions with native plants and animals
• streamlined approvals and dedicated resources to help reduce the regulatory burden.

Transition to this land management framework began on 25 August 2017 with the commencement of the Land Management (Native Vegetation) Code.

The overall objectives of the reforms are:

• to arrest and ultimately reverse the current decline in the state’s biodiversity while facilitating ecologically sustainable development, in particular efficient and sustainable agricultural development
• enable landholders to improve the efficiency of their agricultural systems and take a more active role in providing incentive and supporting landholders to improve the condition and function of their ecological systems. 

The objective of this audit is to assess whether the clearing of native vegetation in rural areas is effectively regulated and managed by the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) and LLS under these legislative frameworks. The audit also examined the progress of the Biodiversity Conservation Trust in implementing the Biodiversity Conservation Investment Strategy as a counterbalance to rural land clearing. 

At the time of this audit OEH was responsible for preparing the Native Vegetation Regulatory map and for compliance enforcement in relation to unlawful land clearing. Post 1 July 2019, under machinery of government changes, OEH will be abolished and its activities relevant to this audit will be moved to the new Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. For the purposes of this audit we will continue to refer to it as OEH. 

Local Land Services (LLS) is responsible for processing notifications and issuing certificates to landholders for managing the thinning or clearing of native vegetation on rural land through the ‘Land Management (Native Vegetation) Code 2018’ (the Code). This work includes monitoring and reporting on the implementation of the Code, including the establishment and management of set asides.

OEH is responsible for compliance and enforcement in relation to unlawful land clearing. It is also responsible for producing the NVR map, designed to show landholders where land clearing can occur without approval, where approval is required, and where land clearing is not permitted. Post 1 July 2019, under machinery of government changes, OEH will be abolished and its activities relevant to this audit will be moved to the new Department of Planning, Industry and Environment.

Appendix one - Response from agencies

Appendix two - Authorisations for thinning and clearing, and restoration initiatives under the Native Vegetation Act 2003

Appendix three - About the audit

Appendix four - Performance auditing

Parliamentary Reference: Report number #324 - released 27 June 2019

Copyright reserved by the Audit Office of New South Wales. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior consent of the Audit Office of New South Wales. The Audit Office does not accept responsibility for loss or damage suffered by any person acting on or refraining from action as a result of any of this material.

The Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) has not adequately supported or resourced its staff to manage antisocial behaviour in public housing according to a report released today by the Deputy Auditor-General for New South Wales, Ian Goodwin. 

In recent decades, policy makers and legislators in Australian states and territories have developed and implemented initiatives to manage antisocial behaviour in public housing environments. All jurisdictions now have some form of legislation or policy to encourage public housing tenants to comply with rules and obligations of ‘good neighbourliness’. In November 2015, the NSW Parliament changed legislation to introduce a new approach to manage antisocial behaviour in public housing. This approach is commonly described as the ‘strikes’ approach. 

When introduced in the NSW Parliament, the ‘strikes’ approach was described as a means to:

• improve the behaviour of a minority of tenants engaging in antisocial behaviour 
• create better, safer communities for law abiding tenants, including those who are ageing and vulnerable.

FACS has a number of tasks as a landlord, including a responsibility to collect rent and organise housing maintenance. FACS also has a role to support tenants with complex needs and manage antisocial behaviour. These roles have some inherent tensions. The FACS antisocial behaviour management policy aims are: 

to balance the responsibilities of tenants, the rights of their neighbours in social housing, private residents and the broader community with the need to support tenants to sustain their public housing tenancies.

This audit assessed the efficiency and effectiveness of the ‘strikes’ approach to managing antisocial behaviour in public housing environments.

We examined whether:

• the approach is being implemented as intended and leading to improved safety and security in social housing environments
• FACS and its partner agencies have the capability and capacity to implement the approach
• there are effective mechanisms to monitor, report and progressively improve the approach.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #306 - released 10 August 2018