The Auditor-General, Margaret Crawford released a report today highlighting a decline in net profits of electricity agencies and the distributions the government received from these agencies. The report also details continuing issues in the management of Crown Land and TAFE NSW's student administration system.

Auditor-General, Margaret Crawford released a report on the planning and environment cluster today, concluding that the quality of financial reporting is improving. However, the cluster can improve its financial controls and governance framework.

In a report released today, the NSW Auditor-General, Margaret Crawford provides a snapshot of reported fraud in the NSW public sector and an analysis of NSW Government agencies’ fraud controls based on a survey of 102 agencies.

The NSW Government’s ‘program evaluation initiative’, introduced to assess whether service delivery programs achieve expected outcomes and value for money, is largely ineffective according to a report released today by NSW Auditor-General, Margaret Crawford.

Government services, in areas such as public order and safety, health and education, are delivered by agencies through a variety of programs. In 2016–17, the NSW Government estimates that it will spend over $73 billion on programs to deliver services.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #277 - released 3 November 2016

New South Wales has a lower rate of foodborne illness than the national average. This reflects some good practices in the NSW Food Authority’s approach to monitoring food safety standards. It also is a factor of the long-standing commitment by local councils’ to ensuring retail food businesses meet these standards.

To ensure foodborne illness remains low, the Authority needs to better monitor its arrangements with councils which inspect retail food businesses on its behalf, and receive additional and more timely information from councils on compliance with food safety standards.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #274 - released 15 September 2016

The management of the sale and lease of Crown land is not effective because oversight of decision-making is inadequate and community involvement is limited, according to a report released today by NSW Auditor-General, Margaret Crawford.

The audit found limited oversight of sales and leases of Crown land by the Department of Industry - Lands. The Department has only just started monitoring whether tenants are complying with lease conditions, and does not have a clear view of what is happening on most leased Crown land. The majority of guidance provided to staff has not been updated in the past decade, contributing to staff not correctly implementing policies on rental rebates, unpaid rent, rent redeterminations and the direct negotiation of sales and leases on Crown land.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #273 - released 8 September 2016

The distributions to the NSW Government increased from $690 million in 2013-14 to $1.0 billion in 2014-15. The increase was largely due to a higher dividend from Sydney Water Corporation.

The NSW Environment Protection Authority has reduced the average time to assess contaminated sites from 203 days in 2013-14 to 73 days in 2014-15. It is also improving transparency by making more information on its performance publicly available.
 
In 2014-15, the Department of Planning and Environment increased new housing approvals across New South Wales by 12 per cent to 58,252, exceeding the State priority target of 50,000. It also reduced the time taken to assess major projects from about three years in 2013-14 to four months in 2014-15.

For the third consecutive year, the General Government and Total State Sector Accounts received an unqualified auditor’s opinion following more than a decade of qualifications.
 
Errors in agencies’ financial statements and the Total State Sector Accounts were corrected as necessary to ensure compliance with Australian Accounting Standards and the requirements of the Public Finance and Audit Act 1983.
 
Improvements to year-end financial reporting processes have enabled the Audit Office to issue 229 audit opinions by 2 October 2015, compared to only 67 by the same time in 2011.

This report examines selected areas of government activity to see if sufficient information was available to identify and assess changes in productivity. The areas examined were primary and secondary school public education, acute inpatient care in NSW public hospitals, CityRail, the NSW Police Force, and the NSW Local Court.

Productivity is commonly defined as the amount of output per unit of input.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #256 - released 16 July 2015