Placement reviews are not undertaken for all children and young people in statutory care.  Caseworkers are required to review placements annually to assess the health, wellbeing, education and social life of the child. Over three-quarters of children and young people received placement reviews in 2014-15 compared to about half of them in the previous twelve months.

Generally, NSW universities are in a sound financial position, but average operating margins are falling and operating expenditure is growing faster than operative revenue.
 
The university sector’s average operating margin fell from 6.6 per cent in 2013 to 4.8 per cent in 2014 and combined operating expenditure grew 0.9 per cent more than operating revenue. Employee expenses in 2014 increased by an average of 5.1 per cent and other expenses by 5.8 per cent.
 
Operating expenditure grew at a faster pace than operating revenue at six of the ten NSW universities.

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 planning and environment cluster continues to improve with fewer reported misstatements over the last two years. The financial statements of all agencies within this cluster received unqualified audit opinions, except for one small agency where the audit is incomplete. Many cluster agencies’ actual revenues, expenses, assets and liabilities varied from budget by more than five per cent, suggesting financial management and budgetary controls could be improved.

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.

All agencies in transport cluster received unqualified audit opinions for the year ended 30 June 2014. The quality of financial reporting continues to improve with the number of misstatements identified during audits falling for the fifth year in a row.

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.

The NSW public university sector is in a good financial position with the combined operating margin improving to 6.6 per cent in 2013 up from 4.9 per cent in 2012.

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.