Reports
Actions for Planning, Industry and Environment 2021
Planning, Industry and Environment 2021
This report analyses the results of our audits of the Planning, Industry and Environment cluster agencies for the year ended 30 June 2021.
Our preferred approach is to table the ‘Report on State Finances’ in Parliament before any other cluster report. This is because the 'Report on State Finances' focuses on the audit results and observations relating to the Total State Sector Accounts, in effect a consolidation of all government agencies. This year the 'Report on State Finances' has been delayed due to significant accounting issues being considered in the Total State Sector Accounts and which may impact the Treasury and Transport clusters.
As there are no outstanding matters relating to audits in the Planning, Industry and Environment cluster impacting the Total State Sector Accounts we have decided to break with normal practice and table this cluster report ahead of the ‘Report on State Finances’.
What the report is about
The results of the Planning, Industry and Environment cluster agencies' financial statements audits for the year ended 30 June 2021.
What we found
Unmodified audit opinions were issued for all completed 30 June 2021 financial statements audits of cluster agencies. Three audits are ongoing.
An 'Other Matter' paragraph was included in the Independent Planning Commission's (the IPC) audit opinion because the prior year comparative figures were not audited. Prior to 2020–21, the IPC was not required to prepare separate financial statements under the Public Finance and Audit Act 1983 (PF&A Act). The financial reporting provisions of the Government Sector Finance Act 2018 now require the IPC to prepare financial statements.
The number of identified misstatements increased from 51 in 2019–20 to 54 in 2020–21.
The 2010–11 to 2019–20 audits of the Water Administration Ministerial Corporation’s (the Corporation) financial statements are incomplete due to insufficient records and evidence to support the transactions of the Corporation, particularly for the earlier years. Management has commenced actions to improve the governance and financial management of the Corporation. These audits are currently in progress and the 2020–21 audit will commence shortly.
There are 609 State controlled Crown land managers (CLMs) across New South Wales that predominantly manage small parcels of Crown land.
Eight CLMs prepared and submitted 2019–20 financial statements by the revised deadline of 30 June 2021. A further 24 CLMs did not prepare financial statements in accordance with the PF&A Act. The remaining CLMs were not required to prepare 2019–20 financial statements as they met NSW Treasury's financial reporting exemption criteria.
The Department of Planning, Industry and Environment's (the department) preliminary assessment indicates that 60 CLMs are required to prepare financial statements in 2020–21. To date, no CLMs have prepared and submitted financial statements for audit in 2020–21.
There are also 120 common trusts that have never submitted financial statements for audit. Common trusts are responsible for the care, control and management of land that has been set aside for specific use in a certain locality, such as grazing, camping or bushwalking.
What the key issues were
The number of matters we reported to management increased from 135 in 2019–20 to 180 in 2020–21, of which 40 per cent were repeat findings.
Seven high-risk issues were identified in 2020–21:
- system control deficiencies at the department relating to user access to HR and payroll management systems, vendor master data management and journal processing, which require manual reviews to mitigate risks
- deficiencies related to the Centennial Park and Moore Park Trust's tree assets valuation methodology
- the Lord Howe Island Board did not regularly review and monitor privileged user access rights to key information systems
- the Natural Resources Access Regulator identified and adjusted three prior period errors retrospectively, which indicate deficiencies within the financial reporting processes
- deficiencies relating to the Parramatta Park Trust's tree assets valuation methodology
- lease arrangements have not been confirmed between the Planning Ministerial Corporation and Office of Sport regarding the Sydney International Regatta Centre
- the Wentworth Park Sporting Complex land manager (the land manager) has a $6.5 million loan with Greyhound Racing NSW (GRNSW). GRNSW requested the land manager to repay the loan. However, the land manager subsequently requested GRNSW to convert the loan to a grant. Should this request be denied, the land manager would not be able to continue as a going concern without financial support. This matter remains unresolved for many years.
There continues to be significant deficiencies in Crown land records. The department uses the Crown Land Information Database (CLID) to record key information relating to Crown land in New South Wales that are managed and controlled by the department and land managers (including councils and land managers controlled by the state). The CLID system was not designed to facilitate financial reporting and the department is required to conduct extensive adjustments and reconciliations to produce accurate information for the financial statements.
The department is implementing a new system to record Crown land (the CrownTracker project). The department advised that the project completion date will be confirmed by June 2022.
What we recommended
The department should ensure CLMs and common trusts meet their statutory reporting obligations.
Cluster agencies should prioritise and action recommendations to address internal control deficiencies, with a focus on addressing high-risk and repeat issues.
The department should prioritise action to ensure the Crown land database is complete and accurate. This will allow the department and CLMs to be better informed about the Crown land they control.
Fast facts
The Planning, Industry and Environment cluster aims to make the lives of people in New South Wales better by developing well-connected communities, preserving the environment, supporting industries and contributing to a strong economy.
There are 54 agencies, 609 State controlled Crown land managers that predominantly manage small parcels of Crown land and 120 common trusts in the cluster.
- 42% of the area of NSW is Crown land
- $33.2b water and electricity infrastructure as at 30 June 2021
- 100% unqualified audit opinions were issued for all completed 30 June 2021 financial statements audits
- 7 high-risk management letter findings were identified
- 54 monetary misstatements were reported in 2020–21
- 40% of reported issues were repeat issues
This report provides parliament and other users of the Planning, Industry and Environment cluster (the cluster) agencies’ financial statements with the results of our audits, our observations, analysis, conclusions and recommendations in the following areas:
- financial reporting
- audit observations.
Financial reporting is an important element of good governance. Confidence and transparency in public sector decision-making are enhanced when financial reporting is accurate and timely.
This chapter outlines our audit observations related to the financial reporting of agencies in the Planning, Industry and Environment cluster (the cluster) for 2021.
Section highlights
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Appropriate financial controls help ensure the efficient and effective use of resources and administration of agency policies. They are essential for quality and timely decision-making.
This chapter outlines our observations and insights from our financial statements audits of agencies in the Planning, Industry and Environment cluster.
Section highlights
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Appendix one - Misstatements in financial statements submitted for audit
Appendix two – Early close procedures
Appendix three – Timeliness of financial reporting
Appendix four – Financial data
Copyright notice
© 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.
Actions for Stronger Communities 2021
Stronger Communities 2021
This report analyses the results of our audits of the Stronger Communities cluster agencies for the year ended 30 June 2021.
Our preferred approach is to table the ‘Report on State Finances’ in Parliament before any other cluster report. This is because the 'Report on State Finances' focuses on the audit results and observations relating to the Total State Sector Accounts, in effect a consolidation of all government agencies. This year the 'Report on State Finances' has been delayed due to significant accounting issues being considered in the Total State Sector Accounts and which may impact the Treasury and Transport clusters.
As there are no outstanding matters relating to audits in the Stronger Communities cluster impacting the Total State Sector Accounts we have decided to break with normal practice and table this cluster report ahead of the ‘Report on State Finances’.
What the report is about
The results of the Stronger Communities cluster agencies' financial statement audits for the year ended 30 June 2021.
What we found
Unqualified audit opinions were issued for all 30 June 2021 financial statements of cluster agencies.
Eleven of the 15 cluster agencies required to submit 2020–21 early close financial statements and other mandatory procedures did not meet the statutory deadline. Five agencies did not perform all mandatory procedures.
The implementation of AASB 1059 'Service Concession Arrangements: Grantors' had a significant impact on the Department of Communities and Justice's (the department) 2020–21 financial statements. The department applied a modified retrospective approach upon initial adoption at 1 July 2020 and recognised service concession assets and liabilities of $1.0 billion and $1.2 billion respectively (relating to three correctional centres with private sector operators).
The department was, this year for the first time, able to reliably measure Incurred But Not Reported (IBNR) claims relating to its Victims Support Scheme. The department recorded a liability of $200 million at 30 June 2021. Liabilities for Child Sexual Assault IBNR claim continue to be not recorded on the basis they are unable to be reliably measured.
The number of monetary misstatements identified during the audit of the financial statements for the cluster increased from 61 in 2019–20 to 72 in 2020–21.
What the key issues were
The number of issues reported to management decreased from 191 in 2019–20 to 172 in 2020–21. However, 45 per cent were repeat issues related to information technology, governance and oversight controls.
Seven high risk issues were identified in 2020–21, an increase of five compared to last year. High risk issues related to deficiencies in IT access controls at Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust; a lack of a formal agreement between the Office of Sport and Planning Ministerial Corporation over the management of a sporting venue; asset revaluations at both Fire and Rescue NSW and the Trustees of the Anzac Memorial Building; and three issues related to revenue recognition control deficiencies at New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council and two of its subsidiaries.
What we recommended
Cluster agencies should ensure all applicable mandatory early close procedures are completed and the outcomes provided to the audit team in accordance with the deadlines set by NSW Treasury.
We recommend cluster agencies action recommendations to address internal control weaknesses promptly. Focus should be given to addressing high risk and repeat issues.
Fast factsThe Stronger Communities cluster, consisting of 28 agencies, aims to deliver community services that support a safe and just New South Wales.
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This report provides Parliament and other users of the Stronger Communities cluster’s financial statements with the results of our audits, our observations, analysis, conclusions and recommendations in the following areas:
- financial reporting
- audit observations.
Financial reporting is an important element of good governance. Confidence and transparency in public sector decision making are enhanced when financial reporting is accurate and timely.
This chapter outlines our audit observations related to the financial reporting of agencies in the Stronger Communities cluster (the cluster) for 2021.
Section highlights
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Appropriate financial controls help ensure the efficient and effective use of resources and administration of agency policies. They are essential for quality and timely decision making.
This chapter outlines our observations and insights from our financial statement audits of agencies in the Stronger Communities cluster.
Section highlights
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Findings reported to management
The overall number of findings has decreased, but the level of repeat issues increased
Breakdowns and weaknesses in internal controls increase the risk of fraud and error. Deficiencies in internal controls, matters of governance interest and unresolved issues were reported to management and those charged with governance of agencies. The Audit Office does this through management letters, which include observations, related implications, recommendations and risk ratings.
In 2020–21, there were 172 findings raised across the cluster (191 in 2019–20). 45 per cent of all issues were repeat issues (32 per cent in 2019–20).
Repeat issues largely related to weaknesses in controls over information technology (IT), governance and oversight.
A delay in implementing audit recommendations increases the risk of intentional and accidental errors in processing information, producing management reports and generating financial statements. This can impair decision‑making, affect service delivery and expose agencies to fraud, financial loss and reputational damage. Poor controls may also mean agency staff are less likely to follow internal policies, inadvertently causing the agency not to comply with legislation, regulation and central agency policies.
2020–21 audits identified seven high risk findings
High risk findings were reported at the following cluster agencies. Two high risk findings reported in 2019–20 were resolved.
Agency | Description |
2020–21 findings | |
Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust (new finding) * | The audit of Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust's IT access controls identified:
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Fire and Rescue NSW (new finding) | Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) completed a comprehensive revaluation of its fire appliances in 2020–21. The audit of the revaluation found there was inadequate analysis and quality control by management over the valuation process prior to the outcomes being included in the financial statements. FRNSW had 57 fleet assets that have not been revalued due to problems with data supplied by the valuer. The written down value:
The review also found:
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New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council (NSWALC) (new finding) | The audit of NSWALC's revenue identified there was no formal assessment of relevant contracts for the nature, amount and timing of revenue recognition before preparing the financial statements. This matter has been included as a high risk finding as it contributed to material monetary misstatements and disclosure deficiencies relating to revenue transactions. |
NSWALC Employment and Training Limited (new finding) | The audit of NSWALC Employment and Training Limited's revenue found:
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NSWALC Housing Limited (new finding) | The audit of NSWALC Housing Limited's revenue identified it:
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Office of Sport (new finding) |
The Olympic Co-ordination Authority Dissolution Act 2002 transferred the assets, rights and liabilities relating to the Sydney International Regatta Centre (SIRC) to the Planning Ministerial Corporation (the Corporation) effective from 1 July 2002. The Corporation recognised the related land assets but did not recognise any of the built assets at the time of transfer. The total value of the land and built assets at 30 June 2021 was The SIRC has been managed by the Office of Sport (the Office) for many years in accordance with a not yet executed management agreement. It appears there was a clear intention in 2005 that the control of SIRC built assets was to be transferred from the then Department of Planning to the then Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation (a predecessor of the Office), through the exchange of letters between the relevant Ministers and an Administrative Order (the Order). The Order transferred the SIRC staff from the then Department of Planning to the then Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation. However, it was silent on whether the relevant built assets were transferred. Currently, the Office recognises the SIRC built assets in the financial statements whilst the Corporation recognises the land assets as the legal owner of the property. This matter has been included as a high risk finding as the lack of a formal management agreement casts doubt over the accounting treatment of SIRC property. |
The Trustees of the Anzac Memorial Building (new finding) |
The audit of the Trustees of the Anzac Memorial Building's property, plant and equipment identified:
This matter has been included as a high risk finding as it contributed to material monetary misstatements and disclosure deficiencies relating to property, plant and equipment. |
Recommendation (repeat issue)We recommend cluster agencies action recommendations to address internal control weaknesses promptly. Focus should be given to addressing high risk and repeat issues. |
The table below describes issues commonly identified across the cluster by category and risk rating.
Risk rating | Issue |
Information technology | |
High3 |
The financial audits identified weaknesses in information technology processes and controls that support the integrity of financial data used to prepare agencies' financial statements. Of particular concern are issues with:
|
Moderate2 |
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Low1 5 new, 6 repeat |
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Internal control deficiencies or improvements | |
High3 |
The financial audits identified internal control weaknesses across the following key business processes:
|
Moderate2 |
|
Low1 |
|
Financial reporting | |
High3 |
The financial audits identified weaknesses in financial reporting processes, including:
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Moderate2 |
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Low1 |
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Governance and oversight | |
High3 1 new |
The financial audits identified areas where agencies could strengthen governance and oversight processes, including:
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Moderate2 5 new, 11 repeat |
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Low1 12 new, 8 repeat |
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Non-compliance with key legislation and/or central agency policies | |
Moderate2 7 new, 6 repeat |
The financial audits identified the need for agencies to improve their compliance with key legislation and/or central agency policies, including:
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Low1 2 new, 8 repeat |
2 Moderate risk from the consequence and/or likelihood of an event that has had, or may have a negative impact on the entity.
1 Low risk from the consequence and/or likelihood of an event that has had, or may have a negative impact on the entity.
Note: Management letter findings are based either on final management letters issued to agencies, or draft letters where findings have been agreed with management.
The number of moderate risk findings decreased from prior year
Seventy‑eight moderate risk findings were reported in 2020–21, representing a 22 per cent decrease from 2019–20. Of these, 43 were repeat findings, and 35 were new issues.
Moderate risk findings reported in 2020–21 include:
- weaknesses in governance arrangements, including outdated policies and procedures and arrangements that do not align with NSW Government guidelines, such as the NSW Government Procurement Policy Framework and NSW Cyber Security Policy
- weaknesses in user access administration including:
- user access reviews
- monitoring of privileged user access and activities
- password policy configuration
- cyber security improvements including:
- implementation and update of governance arrangements
- monitoring of third‑party system access
- patch management improvement
- outdated instruments of financial delegation and non‑compliance with established financial delegations
- weaknesses in supplier and employee masterfile maintenance.
Appendix one – Misstatements in financial statements submitted for audit
Appendix two – Early close procedures
Appendix three – Timeliness of financial reporting
Appendix four – Financial data
Copyright notice
© 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.
Actions for Regional NSW 2021
Regional NSW 2021
This report analyses the results of our audits of the Regional NSW cluster agencies for the year ended 30 June 2021.
Our preferred approach is to table the ‘Report on State Finances’ in Parliament before any other cluster report. This is because the 'Report on State Finances' focuses on the audit results and observations relating to the Total State Sector Accounts, in effect a consolidation of all government agencies. This year the 'Report on State Finances' has been delayed due to significant accounting issues being considered in the Total State Sector Accounts and which may impact the Treasury and Transport clusters.
As there are no outstanding matters relating to audits in the Regional NSW cluster impacting the Total State Sector Accounts we have decided to break with normal practice and table this cluster report ahead of the ‘Report on State Finances’.
What the report is about
The results of the Regional NSW cluster (the cluster) agencies’ financial statement audits for the year ended 30 June 2021.
What we found
Unmodified audit opinions were issued for all completed 30 June 2021 financial statement audits of cluster agencies. Four audits are ongoing.
The number of misstatements identified in the financial statements of cluster agencies decreased from 27 in 2019–20 to seven in 2020–21.
The Department corrected an understatement of $82.2 million in prepaid income related to the Bushfire Clean-up Program.
What the key issues were
Local Land Services (LLS) undertook a comprehensive revaluation of asset improvements on land reserves used for moving stock (travelling stock reserves).
The revaluation process identified that improvements on land reserves, with a value of $93.0 million, had not been previously recognised in the financial statements. LLS corrected this error by restating the 2019–20 comparative balances in its 2020–21 financial statements.
The Forestry Corporation of NSW revalued its biological assets that comprise approximately 225,000 hectares of softwood plantations and 34,000 hectares of hardwood forests. The current year valuation resulted in $71.4 million decrement in the total biological assets from $824.9 million in 2019–20 to $753.5 million in 2020–21.
The number of matters reported to management decreased from 36 in 2019–20 to 19 in 2020–21. Twelve moderate risk issues were identified and 47 per cent of reported issues were repeat issues.
What we recommended
Cluster agencies should prioritise and action recommendations to address internal control deficiencies.
Fast factsThe Regional NSW cluster plans and delivers regional programs and infrastructure to respond to regional issues, creating and preserving regional jobs, driving regional economy, growing existing and supporting emerging industries. There are 31 agencies in the cluster.
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This report provides Parliament and other users of the Regional NSW cluster agencies’ financial statements with the results of our audits, our observations, analysis, conclusions and recommendations in the following areas:
- financial reporting
- audit observations.
Financial reporting is an important element of good governance. Confidence and transparency in public sector decision making are enhanced when financial reporting is accurate and timely.
This chapter outlines our audit observations related to the financial reporting of agencies in the Regional NSW cluster for 2021.
Section highlights
|
Appropriate financial controls help ensure the efficient and effective use of resources and administration of agency policies. They are essential for quality and timely decision making.
This chapter outlines our observations and insights from our financial statement audits of agencies in the Regional NSW cluster.
Section highlights
|
Appendix one - Misstatements in financial statements submitted for audit
Appendix two - Early close procedures
Appendix three - Financial data
Copyright notice
© 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.
Actions for Access to health services in custody
Access to health services in custody
What the report is about
This audit assessed whether adults in custody have effective access to health services. The audit examined the activities of Justice Health and Corrective Services NSW.
What we found
The majority of custodial patients receive timely health care, but a small proportion of patients are not receiving care within target timeframes.
Eleven per cent of scheduled health appointments are not attended, and agencies can do more to understand the reasons for non-attendance.
Demand for mental health care exceeds service capacity and some patients are held in environments not appropriate for their needs.
Justice Health's information systems do not support the effective transfer of medical records as patients move around the prison network.
Not all patients are released from custody with a discharge plan.
Justice Health's system managers do not receive sufficiently detailed reports to understand strategic risks or opportunities to improve access to health services.
Public and private prison health operators do not report against consistent performance measures.
Justice Health is mandated to assess health services in private prisons. This conflicts with its role as a contracted provider of health services in the private prison system.
What we recommended
Enhanced reporting on patient access to health services, to identify risks and challenges across key service areas.
Identification and implementation of the improvements required for information to be shared across the custodial network and with external health providers.
Development of a framework to govern and monitor costs for patient health escorts and movements.
Development of a framework to govern responsibilities for mental health services.
Progression of infrastructure plans that address the lack of specialist accommodation for mental health patients and aged and frail patients.
Collaboration to align the performance measures to enable benchmarking between public and private prison health services.
Action to remediate the conflicting monitoring arrangements of public and private prison health operators.
Fast facts
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Access to health services in custody
This audit examined whether adults in the New South Wales public prison system have effective access to health services. In making this assessment, we considered whether Justice Health and Corrective Services NSW effectively cooperate and coordinate so that patients have timely access to health services, systems and practices support continuity of care, and access to health services is monitored and reviewed.
As part of this audit, we assessed actions undertaken by Justice Health and Corrective Services NSW in managing the first COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. However, due to the timing of this audit report, this audit does not report on the agencies’ response to managing the current outbreak of COVID-19 in September 2021.
Health services in New South Wales prisons are delivered by both public and private operators. The public prison system is made up of 33 correctional centres and the Long Bay Hospital. All health services in the public prison system are delivered by the Justice Health and Forensic Mental Health Network (Justice Health).
In the public prison system, Justice Health is responsible for the clinical care of patients with physical and mental illnesses. Clinicians provide health assessments, treatments, medication management, and some counselling services in prison health clinics. Patients are triaged by primary health nurses and if they require treatments or medication, they are referred to prison‑based doctors including specialists or other clinicians. Patients requiring complex or emergency care are transferred to hospitals or other specialty services outside the prison complex.
Private operators deliver health services in three private prisons through contract arrangements with Corrective Services NSW. Justice Health delivers health care at one correctional centre via a contract arrangement with Corrective Services NSW. In total, contracted health service operators deliver health care to approximately 25 per cent of the New South Wales prison population.
Justice Health is required by law to monitor the performance of contracted health service providers in New South Wales prisons, including services provided at the John Morony Correctional Centre. The Auditor‑General’s mandate does not permit a direct examination of information held by private sector entities, however this audit does assess the effectiveness of Justice Health's role in monitoring health services in private prisons.
Corrective Services NSW is responsible for security in public prisons, including the facilitation of patient access to health care at prison health clinics and the transfer of patients to hospitals and other health services outside of the prison environment. Corrective Services NSW also delivers behaviour‑based psychology services. Some are delivered as behaviour modification courses that aim to reduce criminal and offending activity amongst the prison population. These programs may be linked to parole or other custodial conditions. Other psychology services include counselling for people with self‑harming or suicidal behaviours.
Research from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare indicates that people in custody are more likely than the general population to be affected by chronic and acute illnesses, including higher rates of mental illness and communicable diseases1. In March 2021, there were 13,063 adults in custody in New South Wales.
The objective of this performance audit was to assess whether adults in the public prison system have effective access to health services. In making this assessment, we considered whether Justice Health and Corrective Services NSW effectively cooperate and coordinate so that:
- patients have timely access to health services
- systems and practices support the continuity of health care
- access to health services is monitored, reviewed, and reported across the network.
ConclusionJustice Health delivers timely health care to adult custodial patients who need routine medications and treatment for minor medical conditions. Justice Health also delivers timely care to patients requiring urgent medical attention, including emergency transfers to hospitals. However, Justice Health does not always meet recommended timeframes to deliver health care to patients who are waitlisted for treatment from doctors and other medical specialists, or for those waiting for assessments and prescriptions.In 2020, Justice Health provided over 770,000 instances of medical care to adults in the New South Wales prison network. Approximately half of this health care was delivered on the spot, by nurses who dispensed routine medications or treated the minor medical ailments of 'walk‑in' patients. Doctors, specialists, and nurse clinicians delivered the other half of prison health care via scheduled health appointments. In most cases, this health care was timely, except for a proportion of patients who were waiting for time‑critical treatments, prescriptions, or assessments. In 2020, 40 per cent of patients identified as 'Priority 1' did not receive care within the recommended three‑day timeframe. Patients waiting for these appointments constitute a small proportion of all health care delivered in 2020, at about one per cent of all health care. Nevertheless, the needs of Priority 1 patients are significant, and Justice Health does not know whether the prolonged wait times led to deteriorations in health outcomes, or other adverse outcomes. Close to 1,000 patients required emergency treatment in 2020, and were transferred to hospitals as soon as their medical condition was identified by prison health staff. Justice Health uses multiple information management systems that are not sufficiently linked to transfer all patient medical records and appointment information when patients are moved across the prison system. Appointment schedules and patient medications are transferred through manual processes. There is also limited information sharing with community health providers when custodial patients enter or leave custody.Justice Health has multiple and parallel information systems, including paper‑based medical records. These systems are not effective for information sharing across the prison system as patients are moved between prisons and facilities at frequent intervals. Clinical staff are not always alerted when a patient is moved from one prison to another, or released from custody after a court appearance. This impacts on the effective scheduling and management of prison health appointments, and the exchange of patient health records across the prison network. Justice Health's information systems and protocols also do not support the effective exchange of information with external health providers. The transfer of health information is a manual process and there can be significant delays in providing or receiving information from community health providers when custodial patients enter prisons or are released. Corrective Services NSW and Justice Health executives do not receive sufficiently detailed information or reports to understand the impediments to health service accessibility and to enable system improvements. There is also limited joint planning between the two agencies to improve patient access to health care. The governance and monitoring arrangements for public and private prison health services are flawed and create a conflict of interest for Justice Health as both a service provider and a system monitor.Justice Health's data dashboard assists managers and clinicians to understand and manage the wait times for health appointments at the prison service level. However, reporting to senior executives on wait times for health services is insufficiently detailed to indicate risks or opportunities for strategic improvement. Corrective Services NSW does not produce sufficiently detailed reports on the costs of transferring custodial patients to health appointments outside the prison network to improve efficiencies or understand trends over time. There is not enough system‑level planning between Corrective Services NSW and Justice Health to optimise patient attendance at health appointments. Greater collaboration is needed to improve appointment scheduling through notifications about patient movements across the prison network. There are limitations in the performance monitoring of public and private prison health services. It is not possible to benchmark or compare public and private prison health services and outcomes because the two systems do not report against common Key Performance Indicators. While Justice Health has taken steps to maintain independence and transparency in its legislated role as assessor of health services in private prisons, there is an inherent conflict of interest in this monitoring role, as Justice Health is also a contracted provider of health services in the private prison system. |
1. Key findings
The majority of custodial patients receive timely health care, but a small proportion of patients with priority appointments are not receiving care within target timeframes
Approximately half of all health care provided by Justice Health is immediate. It is delivered to 'walk‑in' patients as soon as they present at prison health clinics. Most of these patients are receiving daily medications, while a small proportion require urgent or immediate care for injuries or illnesses. The other half of prison health care is delivered via scheduled appointments. Patients waiting for health appointments are given a priority rating according to the time within which they should be seen by a clinician.
Patients requiring the most time‑critical care are given a Priority 1 rating. These patients should receive treatment within one to three days. In December 2020, the average wait time for Priority 1 treatment was five and a half days, almost double the target. This is an improvement on wait times in June 2019, when the average wait time was just over 13 days. Justice Health does not assess or measure the impacts of delayed care on these patients.
According to Justice Health, the high numbers of ‘walk‑ins’ contribute to increased wait times for medical appointments. In addition, some specialty health clinics operate weekly, which means that patients cannot be seen by specialists within a one to three‑day timeline. Security events such as prison lockdowns can also contribute to increased wait times, as they limit the access that patients have to prison health clinics during out‑of‑cell hours.
If patients need emergency medical treatment, they are transferred to hospitals in line with Justice Health's policy. In 2020, just over 1,000 patients were transferred to hospital for emergency medical care.
A significant proportion of prison health appointments are not attended, and not enough is being done to understand the reasons, or to improve attendance rates
In 2020, 11 per cent of all scheduled health appointments in prison clinics were not attended. This amounts to approximately 60,000 appointments over the year. Non‑attended appointments have flow‑on impacts on wait times and backlogs for scheduled health appointments. Understanding why they occur is necessary to improve efficiencies in scheduling and patient access to health services.
In 2020, the most common reason for non‑attended health appointments was: 'patient unable to attend'. Justice Health clinicians use this when patients do not arrive at the prison health clinic at the scheduled time, and clinicians lack any other information to explain the non‑attendance.
The second most common recorded reason for non‑attended appointments was: 'cancelled by Corrective Services NSW'. These cancellations are due to operational or security reasons, including prison lockdowns. Data from Justice Health indicates that in 2020, there were an average of 12 lockdowns per week across New South Wales prisons.
A range of factors can impact on patient attendance at appointments, some of which are unavoidable. That said, more can be done to understand and reduce non‑attendance. For example, there is potential for Corrective Services NSW to implement tighter protocols to update information about patient availability on the daily movement lists. This might include checking whether patients are willing to attend appointments. Similarly, there is potential for Justice Health clinicians to implement tighter protocols to check patient lists ahead of scheduled appointments, and to re‑schedule appointments where patients are unavailable.
Demand for mental health care exceeds service capacity and some patients are held in environments that are not appropriate for their needs
There is a high demand for mental health services in New South Wales prisons. In March 2021, at least 143 mental health patients were waiting for access to an acute or sub‑acute mental health unit across the New South Wales prison system. The average wait time for a mental health facility was 43 days. Seventeen patients had wait times of over 100 days. Patients waiting for sub‑acute mental health services had longer wait times than those waiting for acute mental health services.
There are limited mental health beds for women across the New South Wales prison network. There are ten allocated beds for women at the Mental Health Screening Unit at Silverwater Correctional Complex, and no allocated beds for women at Long Bay Hospital.
A lack of bed availability in the Forensic Hospital means that, as of February 2021, 63 forensic patients were being held in mental health facilities in mainstream prisons, when they should have been accommodated in the Forensic Hospital. Some of these forensic patients have been held in mainstream prison facilities for decades.
Cross‑agency co‑operation and planning is required to identify and build infrastructure that will reduce wait times for mental health beds. Over several years, Justice Health has developed, reviewed, and worked to progress a strategic plan for NSW Forensic Mental Health that includes enhanced mental health bed capacity across the NSW system. The latest version of this strategic plan remains in draft and has yet to be approved by the NSW Ministry of Health.
In 2016, Corrective Services NSW commenced a Prison Bed Capacity Program. It was focussed on enhancing capacity across the prison system and did not include specialist health beds. More recently, Corrective Services NSW has been developing a business case to improve the provision of specialist health care facilities across the network, including mental health facilities.
Justice Health's clinical information systems do not support the effective transfer of health appointments or medication records as patients are moved to new prison locations
Justice Health's clinical information systems are multiple and complex. There are five health information systems that include a mix of electronic and paper‑based records. Information management systems contain clinical records, appointment information, medication records, dental records, and specialist health information. Corrective Services NSW maintain separate information systems relating to prison records and psychology treatment information.
The transfer of people across different correctional centres is a frequent occurrence. In 2020, there were over 41,000 movements between correctional centres. People are transferred for a range of reasons including for security purposes, or to be located closer to hospitals or specialist health services.
Justice Health receives a list of patient transfers one day prior to transfer. Nurses are required to prepare medications and clinical handovers for patients with complex health conditions. These handovers are verbal, however short timeframes mean that handover is not always possible.
While each patient's electronic health records are available across the network, transfer of appointment waitlists must be done manually. There is no automatic alert within the information systems to tell staff that a patient has been moved to another prison. There is a risk that if appointment records are not manually updated, or if staff at destination clinics are not contacted, then appointments will be overlooked.
Justice Health is working with eHealth NSW to develop an improved Electronic Medication Management (EMM) program with expected delivery in late 2021. The EMM has potential to improve the transfer of patient medication records, but it will not fully remediate all inefficiencies of the current systems.
Corrective Services NSW and Justice Health do not engage in sufficient joint planning to improve efficiencies in transports or escorts to health services
Corrective Services NSW and Justice Health do not engage in joint system‑level planning to mitigate the risks and the costs associated with transferring patients to health clinics in prisons, or non‑prison‑based health care. There are no protocols, and limited sharing of information to improve efficiencies in planning and coordinating patient transfers.
Corrective Services NSW does not collate or report on the costs of transporting patients to hospitals and specialist care. While there is data on the overall cost of medical escorts, estimated to be $19.9 million in 2020, Corrective Services NSW is not able to disaggregate this data to determine the reasons for transfers or the system‑level costs. For example, Corrective Services NSW does not know how many prison lockdowns occur when hospital transfers are required.
Medical escorts to specialist health services and hospitals increase the costs to the prison system and contribute to risks in prison management. Medical escorts contributed to 16 per cent of metropolitan prison lockdowns at the peak in 2018, though escort numbers have since been declining. Some Local Health Districts report significant concerns around safety incidents and assaults on staff during medical escorts to hospital.
Corrective Services NSW does not know if transport costs have increased since the 2016 Prison Bed Capacity Program which expanded prison beds in regional New South Wales. To date, there has been no assessment of the cost of taking patients to tertiary hospitals or specialist services. Corrective Services NSW has identified this as an area for improvement.
Justice Health's system managers do not receive sufficiently detailed reports on wait times for health care, to understand strategic risks or opportunities for system improvement
Justice Health's senior executives receive monthly reports on patient wait times for services in prison health clinics. These reports contain headline data about the numbers of days that patients wait for scheduled health appointments by their allocated priority level. Wait time data are averaged across all New South Wales prison health clinics. With some exceptions, almost all executive level reports describe system‑wide appointment wait times without offering further specific detail. For example, there is limited information which would allow managers to understand the performance of specialty health groups, or to make any comparative analysis of the performance of different prison facilities.
Executive reports are also not detailed enough to indicate whether prisons with particular security classifications offer greater or lesser access to health services. It is not possible to assess whether patients in metropolitan or regional prisons have different levels of health service access. This prevents managers from identifying strategic risks across the prison network, targeting resources to the areas of greatest risk, and making strategic improvements in system performance.
Trend data on wait times for the different health specialty areas is also required to enable senior managers to compare wait times across prison facilities, security classifications, and localities.
In response to the preliminary findings of this audit, Justice Health has made some improvements to its executive‑level wait time reports. This includes additional detail on health appointment wait times by prison facilities and wait times by health specialty areas.
It is not possible to compare or benchmark the performance of public and private prison health operators or to compare prison health against community health standards
It is not possible to compare or benchmark the performance of the public and private prison health operators in New South Wales using the current Key Performance Indicator (KPI) data. KPI data do not correlate across the public and private systems.
Justice Health reports to the Ministry of Health on 44 prison health KPIs. The 44 KPIs for the public prison system do not align with the seven KPIs the private health operators report against in their contracts with Corrective Services NSW. This means that public and private operators focus on different service areas. For example, private operators have a performance measure for ensuring that custodial patients are provided with release plans. Justice Health does not have a similar measure.
The KPI specifications for the private prison health system were developed by Corrective Services NSW with input from the Ministry of Health. The KPI specifications for the public prison health system were developed by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with Justice Health. There is no rationale for the difference in performance indicators across the public and private systems.
Private providers currently deliver prison services to 25 per cent of the prison population of New South Wales. This proportion has been increasing since 2016. Public and private health operators deliver comparable health services so there is scope to compare performance across the systems.
Justice Health aligns its standard for prison health services with a 'community’ standard of health care access. However, with existing health monitoring measures, it is not possible to assess how well Justice Health is tracking against community health standards with available data from most health specialties.
There is an inherent conflict of interest in Justice Health's monitoring role of health services in private prisons, as Justice Health is also a provider of health services in a private prison
There is a legislated requirement for Justice Health to monitor the performance of private health operators in New South Wales prisons. This monitoring role is described in the Crimes (Administration of Sentences) Act 1999.
Justice Health's monitoring role includes the collection and analysis of health performance data from private health operators, and periodic site visits to assess health service performance. Justice Health reports the findings of monitoring activities to Corrective Services NSW, the contract manager for private prisons.
Justice Health's monitoring role commenced in the late 1990s. In recent years, this role has expanded as the NSW Government has increased the number of privately managed prisons across the state. Justice Health now monitors health services in four private prisons, accounting for approximately one quarter of all custodial patients in the New South Wales prison system.
In 2018, Justice Health was awarded a contract to provide health services at the John Morony Correctional Centre. Justice Health also monitors the health services this Correctional Centre. The timing of the 1999 legislation did not anticipate that Justice Health would be a provider of the services it is required to monitor.
Justice Health has taken steps to maintain independence and transparency in its monitoring role by establishing a number of arms‑length governance arrangements. Justice Health set up a Commissioning Unit that operates independently from its service delivery operations. Justice Health also established an alternative reporting chain via a Board subcommittee to oversee the performance of health providers in private prisons.
Despite all actions to establish independence, the monitoring role confers dual responsibilities on the Chief Executive of Justice Health as both an operational manager of health services in a private prison and as a manager responsible for monitoring these same services. As a result, the Chief Executive of Justice Health has access to information about the overall performance of the private prison health system in New South Wales.
As a competitor for the provision of health services in privately operated prisons, Justice Health has access to information to which other private health providers do not. This potentially gives Justice Health a competitive advantage over other private health operators.
2. Recommendations
By December 2022, Justice Health should:
1. enhance reporting on patient access to health services to ensure that system managers can identify risks, challenges, and system improvements across key areas of its service profile
2. in collaboration with the NSW Ministry of Health, identify and implement the required improvements to its health information management systems that will enable effective transfers of patient clinical records and appointment information across the custodial network and with external health providers.
By December 2022, Justice Health and Corrective Services NSW should:
3. develop a joint framework to govern and monitor the costs of their common and connected responsibilities for patient health movements across the prison network and to external health services
4. develop a joint framework to govern their common and connected responsibilities for mental health services.
By December 2022, Justice Health and Corrective Services NSW, in collaboration with the NSW Ministry of Health, should:
5. progress infrastructure plans and projects that address the lack of specialist accommodation for mental health patients and aged and frail patients
6. standardise and align the key performance indicators that monitor the performance of health operators in public and private prisons so that system‑wide benchmarking is possible.
By December 2022, the NSW Ministry of Health should:
7. take action to remediate the conflicting monitoring arrangements of public and private prison health operators.
Appendix one – Response from agencies
Appendix two – About the audit
Appendix three – Performance auditing
Copyright notice
© 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.
Parliamentary reference - Report number #356 - released (23 September 2021).
Actions for Managing climate risks to assets and services
Managing climate risks to assets and services
What the report is about
This report assessed how effectively the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) and NSW Treasury have supported state agencies to manage climate risks to their assets and services.
Climate risks that can impact on state agencies' assets and services include flooding, bushfires, and extreme temperatures. Impacts can include damage to transport, communications and energy infrastructure, increases in hospital admissions, and making social housing or school buildings unsuitable.
NSW Treasury estimates these risks could have significant costs.
What we found
DPIE and NSW Treasury’s support to agencies to manage climate risks to their assets and services has been insufficient.
In 2021, key agencies with critical assets and services have not conducted climate risk assessments, and most lack adaptation plans.
DPIE has not delivered on the NSW Government commitment to develop a state-wide climate change adaptation action plan. This was to be complete in 2017.
There is also no adaptation strategy for the state. These have been released in all other Australian jurisdictions. The NSW Government’s draft strategic plan for its Climate Change Fund was also never finalised.
DPIE’s approach to developing climate projections is robust, but it hasn’t effectively educated agencies in how to use this information to assess climate risk.
NSW Treasury did not consistently apply dedicated resourcing to support agencies' climate risk management until late 2019.
In March 2021, DPIE and NSW Treasury released the Climate Risk Ready NSW Guide and Course. These are designed to improve support to agencies.
What we recommended
DPIE and NSW Treasury should, in partnership:
- enhance the coordination of climate risk management across agencies
- implement climate risk management across their clusters.
DPIE should:
- update information and strengthen education to agencies, and monitor progress
- review relevant land-use planning, development and building guidance
- deliver a climate change adaptation action plan for the state.
NSW Treasury should:
- strengthen climate risk-related guidance to agencies
- coordinate guidance on resilience in infrastructure planning
- review how climate risks have been assured in agencies’ asset management plans.
Fast facts
4 years
between commitments in the NSW Climate Change Policy Framework, and DPIE and NSW Treasury producing key supports to agencies for climate risk management.
$120bn
Value of physical assets held by nine NSW Government entities we examined that have not completed climate risk assessments.
Low capability to do climate risk assessment has been found across state agencies. The total value of NSW Government physical assets is $365 billion, as at 30 June 2020.
x3
NSW Treasury’s estimates of the annual fiscal and economic costs associated with natural disasters will triple by 2060–61.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2021, each of the last four decades has been successively warmer and surface temperatures will continue to increase until at least the mid-century. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) have reported that extreme weather across Australia is more frequent and intense, and there have been longer-term changes to weather patterns. They also report sea levels are rising around Australia increasing the risk of inundation and damage to coastal infrastructure and communities.
According to the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (the department), in New South Wales the impacts of a changing climate, and the risks associated with it, will be felt differently across regions, populations and economic sectors. The department's climate projections indicate the number of hot days will increase, rainfall will vary across the state, and the number of severe fire days will increase.
The NSW Government is a provider of essential services, such as health care, education and public transport. It also owns and manages around $365 billion in physical assets (as at June 2020). More than $180 billion of its assets are in major infrastructure such as roads and railway lines.
In NSW, climate risks that could directly impact on state agencies' assets and services include flooding, bushfires, and extreme temperatures. In recent years, natural hazards exacerbated by climate change have damaged and disrupted government transport, communications and energy infrastructure. As climate risks eventuate, they can also increase hospital admissions when people are affected by poorer air quality, and make social housing dwellings or schools unsafe and unusable during heatwaves. The physical impacts of a changing climate also have significant financial costs. Taking into account projected economic growth, NSW Treasury has estimated that the fiscal and economic costs associated with natural disasters due to climate change will more than triple per year by 2061.
The department and NSW Treasury advise that leading practice in climate risk management includes a process that explicitly identifies climate risks and integrates these into existing risk management, monitoring and reporting systems. This is in line with international risk management and climate adaptation standards. For agencies to manage the physical risks of climate change to their assets and services, leading practice identified by the department means that they need to:
- use robust climate projection information to understand the potential climate impacts
- undertake sound climate risk assessments, within an enterprise risk management framework
- implement adaptation plans that reduce these risks, and harness opportunities.
Adaptation responses that could be planned for include: controlling development in flood-prone locations; ensuring demand for health services can be met during heatwaves; improving thermal comfort in schools to support student engagement; proactive asset maintenance to reduce disruption of essential services, and safeguarding infrastructure from more frequent and intense natural disasters.
According to NSW Treasury policy, agencies are individually responsible for risk management systems appropriate to their context. The department and NSW Treasury have key roles in ensuring that agencies are supported with robust information and timely, relevant guidance to help manage risks to assets and services effectively, especially for emerging risks that require coordinated responses, such as those posed by climate change.
This audit assessed whether the department and NSW Treasury are effectively supporting NSW Government agencies to manage climate risks to their assets and services. It focused on the management of physical risks to assets and services associated with climate change.
Conclusion
The Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (the department) has made climate projections available to agencies since 2014, but provided limited guidance to assist agencies to identify and manage climate risks. NSW Treasury first noted climate change as a contextual factor in its 2012 guidance on risk management. NSW Treasury only clarified requirements for agencies to integrate climate considerations into their risk management processes in December 2020.
The department has not delivered on a NSW Government commitment for a state-wide climate change adaptation action plan, which was meant to be completed in 2017. Currently many state agencies that own or manage assets and provide services do not have climate risk management in place.
Since 2019, the department and NSW Treasury have worked in partnership to develop a coordinated approach to supporting agencies to manage these risks. This includes guidance to agencies on climate risk assessment and adaptation planning published in 2021.
More work is needed to embed, sustain and lead effective climate risk management across the NSW public sector, especially for the state's critical infrastructure and essential services that may be exposed to climate change impacts.
The NSW Government set directions in the 2016 NSW Climate Change Policy Framework to 'manage the impact of climate change on its assets and services by embedding climate change considerations into asset and risk management’ and more broadly into 'government decision-making'.
The department released climate projections and has made information on projected climate change impacts available since 2014, but this has not been effectively communicated to agencies. The absence of a state-wide climate change adaptation action plan has limited the department's implementation of a coordinated, well-communicated program of support to agencies for their climate risk management.
NSW Treasury is responsible for managing the state's finances and providing stewardship to the public sector on financial and risk management, but it did not consistently apply dedicated resourcing to support agencies' climate risk management until late 2019. NSW Treasury estimates the financial costs of climate-related physical risks are significant and will continue to grow.
The partnership between the department and NSW Treasury has produced the 2021 Climate Risk Ready NSW Guide and Course, which aim to help agencies understand their exposure to climate risks and develop adaptation responses. The Guide maps out a process for climate risk assessment and adaptation planning and is referenced in NSW Treasury policy on internal audit and risk management. It is also referenced in NSW Treasury guidance to agencies on how to reflect the effects of climate-related matters in financial statements.
There is more work to be done by the department on maintaining robust, accessible climate information and educating agencies in its use. NSW Treasury will need to continue to update its policies, guidance and economic analyses with relevant climate considerations to support an informed, coordinated approach to managing physical climate risks to agencies' assets and services, and to the state's finances more broadly.
The effectiveness of the department and NSW Treasury's support involves the proactive and sustained take-up of climate risk management by state agencies. There is a key role for the department and NSW Treasury in monitoring this progress and its results.
The support delivered to agencies around climate risk management, including risk assessment and adaptation planning, has been slow to start and of limited impact. The department's capacity to implement a coordinated approach to supporting agencies has also been limited by the absence of a state-wide adaptation strategy and related action plan.
In 2021, products were released by the department and NSW Treasury with potential to improve support to agencies on climate risk assessment and adaption planning (that this, Climate Risk Ready NSW Guide and Course, which provides links to key NSW Treasury polices). The department and NSW Treasury are now leading work to develop a more coordinated approach to climate risk management for agencies' assets and services, and building the resilience of the state to climate risk more broadly.
While climate projections have been available to agencies and the community more broadly since 2013–14, the department has not been effective in educating the relevant data users within agencies in how to use the information for climate risk assessments and adaptation planning.
The absence of a strategy focused on this is significant and has contributed to the current low levels of climate risk assessment uptake across agencies (see section 2). Agencies are required to use the climate projections developed by the department when developing long term plans and strategies as part of the NSW Government Common Planning Assumptions.
For the department, key opportunities to embed climate risk management include leveraging land use planning policies and guidance to drive adaptation, which has potential to better protect the state's assets and services. NSW Treasury has a role in continuing to update its policies, guidance and economic analyses with relevant climate change considerations to support an informed, coordinated approach to addressing physical climate risks to agencies' assets and services, and to the state's finances more broadly.
There is currently no plan on how the department and NSW Treasury intend to routinely monitor the progress of agencies with implementing the CRR Guide or developing climate risk 'maturity' more broadly. As agencies are responsible for implementing risk management systems that meet NSW Treasury standards, which now clearly includes consideration of climate risk (TPP20-08), establishing effective monitoring, reporting and accountability around this progress should be a priority for the department and NSW Treasury.
Appendix one – Response from agencies
Appendix two – Timeline of key activities
Appendix three – About the audit
Appendix four – Performance auditing
Copyright notice
© 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.
Parliamentary reference - Report number #355 - released (7 September 2021).
Actions for Fast-tracked Assessment Program
Fast-tracked Assessment Program
What the report is about
This report examines the effectiveness of the Fast-tracked Assessment Program, administered by the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) between April 2020 and October 2020.
The program aimed to support the construction industry during the COVID-19 crisis by accelerating the final assessment stages for planning proposals and development applications.
DPIE selected projects and planning proposals for fast tracked assessment that demonstrated the potential to:
- deliver jobs
- progress to the next stage of development within six months of determination
- deliver public benefit.
The audit assessed whether the Fast-tracked Assessment Program achieved its objectives while complying with planning controls.
What we found
Through tranches three to six of the program, DPIE successfully accelerated the final stages of 53 assessments. DPIE reported that 89 per cent of these proceeded to the next stage of development within six months.
Assessment of projects and planning proposals was compliant with legislation and other requirements. However, the audit found gaps in DPIE's management of conflicts of interest.
DPIE has not evaluated or costed the program and is not able to demonstrate the extent to which it provided support to the construction industry during COVID-19.
Aspects of the program have been incorporated into longer term reforms to create a new level of transparency over the progress and status of planning assessments.
What we recommended
DPIE should:
- strengthen controls over conflicts of interest
- evaluate the Fast-tracked Assessment Program.
Fast facts
Construction industry support
- The program aimed at providing immediate support to the construction industry during the COVID-19 crisis
59 fast-tracked projects
- 59 projects and 42 planning proposals projects were assessed in six tranches
89% of all fast-tracked assessments in tranches three to six progressed to the next stage of the planning process within six months of determination
In April 2020, the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) introduced programs aimed at providing immediate support to the construction industry during the COVID-19 crisis. One of these was the Fast-tracked Assessment Program. This program identified planning proposals and development applications (DAs), across six tranches, that were partially-assessed and could be accelerated to determination.
In accordance with the program objectives, the planning proposals and DAs selected for fast-tracked assessment had to:
- deliver jobs – particularly in the construction industry
- be capable of progressing to the next stage of development within six months of determination
- deliver public benefit.
At the same time, the Fast-tracked Assessment Program was to lay a foundation for future reform of the planning system by piloting changes in the assessment process that could be adopted in the medium to long term.
This audit assessed whether the Fast-tracked Assessment Program achieved its objectives while complying with planning controls. The audit focused on tranches three to six of the program, which were determined between July 2020 and October 2020. The rationale for focusing on these four tranches was that the program design had been slightly modified after the first two tranches to address identified risks.
Conclusion
Through tranches three to six of the Fast-tracked Assessment Program, DPIE successfully accelerated the final stages of 53 assessments. DPIE’s internal monitoring indicates that 31 DAs and 16 planning proposals selected in these tranches proceeded to the next stage of development within six months of determination. DPIE achieved this while also successfully managing the risk of non-compliance with planning controls arising from the accelerated process. While DPIE has incorporated components of the Fast-tracked Assessment Program into other longer-term reforms, it has not evaluated the program and is not able to demonstrate the extent to which the program provided support to the construction industry during COVID-19.
Between April and October 2020, DPIE adopted a case management approach to accelerate the final stages of assessment for 42 planning proposals and 59 DAs in six tranches. Tranches three to six were the focus of this audit and included 22 planning proposals and 31 DAs. Applicants involved in the program were expected to progress their projects to the next stage of development within six months of determination. While DPIE had no way of compelling applicants to do this and relied on non-binding commitments obtained from applicants, DPIE’s internal monitoring indicates that 47 of the 53 applicants selected in tranches three to six honoured this commitment.
Fast-tracked assessment only applied to the final stages of assessment and required DPIE staff and other stakeholders to work towards a determination deadline. DPIE effectively used a case management approach to manage the risk that the accelerated timeframe could result in planning controls not being fully compliant with legislation. There is some room for improvement in the process, as four of 28 staff assessing planning proposals and DAs had not lodged current conflict of interest declarations.
Based on the results of and learnings from the Fast-tracked Assessment Program, DPIE has incorporated some elements of the program into other longer-term reforms. There is now increased transparency about when applicants can expect to receive a planning determination and DPIE has also introduced a case management approach for strategic and high priority planning applications. Applicants benefiting from case-managed assessment are now required to commit to a formal service charter that specifies the obligations of both DPIE and the applicant.
DPIE has not evaluated the Fast-tracked Assessment Program to understand the costs and benefits of the program, nor which aspects of the program were most effective as a basis for future reform.
Appendix one – Response from agency
Appendix two – Planning determination pathways
Appendix three – About the audit
Appendix four – Performance auditing
© 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.
Parliamentary reference - Report number #354 - released (27 July 2021).
Actions for Universities 2020 audits
Universities 2020 audits
What the report is about
Results of the financial statement audits of the public universities in NSW for the year ended 31 December 2020.
What we found
Unqualified audit opinions were issued for all ten universities.
Two universities reported retrospective corrections of prior period errors.
Universities were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic with student enrolments decreasing in 2020 compared to 2019 by 10,032 (3.3 per cent). Of this decrease 8,310 students were from overseas.
In response to the pandemic, each university provided welfare support, created student hardship funds, provided accommodation and flexibility on payment of course fees. State and Commonwealth governments provided additional support to the sector.
Six universities recorded negative net operating results in 2020 (two in 2019). The combined revenues of the ten universities from fees and charges decreased by $361 million (5.8 per cent).
Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which will continue to impact the financial results of universities in 2021, enrolments of overseas students in semester one of 2021 increased at two universities. This growth meant that total overseas student enrolments increased by 7,944 or 5.8 per cent across the sector as a whole. However, eight universities experienced decreases in overseas student enrolments compared to semester one of 2020. All universities have experienced growth in domestic student enrolments.
What the key issues were
There were 110 findings reported to universities in audit management letters.
Three high risk findings were identified. One related to the continued work by the University of New South Wales to assess its liability for underpayment of casual staff entitlements. The other two deficiencies were at Charles Sturt University, relating to financial reporting implications of major contracts, and resolving issues identified by an internal review of its employment contracts to reliably quantify the university’s liability to its employees.
What we recommended
Universities should prioritise actions to address repeat findings. Forty-five findings were repeated from 2019, of which 23 related to information technology.
Fast factsThere are ten public universities in NSW with 51 local controlled entities and 23 overseas controlled entities.
|
Further information
Please contact Ian Goodwin, Deputy Auditor-General on 9275 7347 or by email.
This report analyses the results of our audits of the financial statements of the ten universities in NSW for the year ended 31 December 2020. The table below summarises our key observations.
1. Financial reporting
Financial reporting | The 2020 financial statements of all ten universities received unmodified audit opinions.
Two universities reported retrospective corrections of prior period errors. The University of Sydney reported errors relating to the underpayment of staff entitlements and the fair value of buildings. Charles Sturt University reported an error relating to how it had calculated right‑of‑use assets and lease liabilities on initial application of the new leasing standard in the previous year. |
Impacts of COVID‑19 |
Student enrolments decreased in 2020 compared to 2019 by 10,032 (3.3 per cent). Of this decrease, 8,310 students were from overseas. The ongoing impact of COVID‑19 in the short‑term, on semester one enrolments for 2021 compared to semester one of 2020, has been mixed:
During 2020, universities provided welfare support to students, created student hardship funds, provided accommodation, and flexibility on payment of course fees. State and Commonwealth governments provided additional support to the sector:
|
Financial results |
Six universities recorded negative net operating results in 2020 (two in 2019). While most universities experienced decreased revenue in 2020, only four had reduced their expenses to a level that was less than revenue. |
Revenue from operations |
Universities' revenue streams were impacted in 2020 by the COVID‑19 pandemic, with fees and charges decreasing by $361 million (5.8 per cent). Government grants as a proportion of total revenue increased for the first time in five years to 34 per cent in 2020. Nearly 40 per cent of universities' total revenue from course fees in 2020 (40.9 per cent in 2019) came from overseas students from three countries: China, India and Nepal (same in 2019). Students from these countries of origin contributed $2.2 billion ($2.4 billion in 2019) in fees. Some universities continue to be dependent on revenues from students from these destinations and their results are more sensitive to fluctuations in demand as a result. |
Other revenues |
Overall philanthropic contributions to universities increased by 32.2 per cent in 2020 to $222 million ($167.9 million in 2019). The University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales attracted 75.2 per cent of the total philanthropic contributions in 2020 (69.5 per cent in 2019). Total research income for universities was $1.4 billion in 20191, with the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales attracting 66.5 per cent of the total research income of all universities in NSW (65.2 per cent in 2018). |
Expenditure | Universities initiated cost saving measures in response to the COVID‑19 pandemic. The cost of redundancy programs increased employee related expenses in 2020 by 4.4 per cent to $6.5 billion ($6.2 billion in 2019). The cost of redundancies offered in 2020 across the universities totalled $293.9 million. Combined other expenses decreased to $2.8 billion in 2020, a reduction of $436 million (13.4 per cent). |
2. Internal controls and governance
Internal control findings | One hundred and ten internal control deficiencies were identified in 2020 (108 in 2019). Forty‑five findings were repeated from 2019, of which 23 related to information technology.
Recommendation: Universities should prioritise actions to address repeat findings on internal control deficiencies in a timely manner. Risks associated with unmitigated control deficiencies may increase over time. Three high risk internal control deficiencies were identified, namely:
Gaps in information technology (IT) controls comprised the majority of the remaining deficiencies. Deficiencies included a lack of sufficient privileged user access reviews and monitoring, payment files being held in editable formats and accessible by unauthorised persons, and password settings not aligning with the requirements of information security policies. |
Business continuity and disaster recovery planning | All universities have a business continuity policy supported with a business impact analysis.
Except for Macquarie University, all other universities had disaster recovery plans prepared for all of the IT systems that support critical business functions. Macquarie University’s disaster recovery plans were still in progress at 31 December 2020. Only half of the universities' policies require regular testing of their business continuity plans and six universities' plans do not specify staff must capture, asses and report disruptive incidents. |
3. Teaching and research
Graduate employment outcomes | Eight out of ten universities were reported as having full‑time employment rates of their undergraduates in 2020 that were greater than the national average.
Six universities were reported as having full‑time employment rates of their postgraduates in 2020 that were greater than the national average. |
Student enrolments by field of education | Enrolments at universities in NSW decreased the most in Management and Commerce courses and Engineering and Related Technologies courses. The largest increase in enrolments was in Society and Culture courses. |
Achieving diversity outcomes | Five universities in 2019 were reported as meeting the target enrolment rate for students from low socio‑economic status (SES) backgrounds.
Seven universities were reported to have increased their enrolments of students from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds in 2019. The target growth rate for increases in enrolments of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students (to exceed the growth rate of enrolments of non‑indigenous students by at least 50 per cent) was achieved in 2019. |
This report provides Parliament with the results of our financial audits of universities in NSW and their controlled entities in 2020, including our analysis, observations and recommendations in the following areas:
- financial reporting
- internal controls and governance
- teaching and research.
Financial reporting is an important element of governance. Confidence and transparency in university sector decision making are enhanced when financial reporting is accurate and timely.
This chapter outlines our audit observations on the financial reporting of universities in NSW for 2020.
Financial results
The graph below shows the net results of individual universities for 2020.
Appropriate and robust internal controls help reduce risks associated with managing finances, compliance and administration of universities.
This chapter outlines the internal controls related observations and insights across universities in NSW for 2020, including overall trends in findings, level of risk and implications.
Our audits do not review all aspects of internal controls and governance every year. The more significant issues and risks are included in this chapter. These along with the less significant matters are reported to universities for management to address.
Universities' primary objectives are teaching and research. They invest most of their resources to achieve quality outcomes in academia and student experience. Universities have committed to achieving certain government targets and compete to advance their reputation and their standing in international and Australian rankings.
This chapter outlines teaching and research outcomes for universities in NSW for 2020.
Actions for Responses to homelessness
Responses to homelessness
What the report is about
The report assessed how effectively the Department of Communities and Justice is responding to homelessness through the NSW Government’s Homelessness Strategy.
It also assessed the effectiveness of the department’s efforts to address street homelessness in its COVID-19 response.
What we found
The strategy was designed to build evidence to inform future state-wide action rather than to end homelessness.
The department received significantly less funding than it sought for the strategy.
Actions delivered under the strategy have a narrow reach in terms of locations and number of people targeted for assistance.
The strategy will have limited short-term impact on homelessness across NSW, but it is building evidence on what works to prevent and reduce homelessness.
The department effectively implemented a crisis response to assist over 4,350 people sleeping rough into temporary accommodation during the pandemic.
While there was an effective crisis response to assist people sleeping rough during the pandemic, more will need to be done to ensure a sustainable response which prevents people returning to homelessness.
What we recommend
The department should:
- provide advice to the NSW Government on sustainably addressing demand and unmet need for homelessness supports
- commence development of a comprehensive strategy to address homelessness, linked to the government’s 10-year plan for social housing and 20-year housing strategy
- enable input to key decisions on homelessness policy from partner agencies, the specialist homelessness services sector, the community housing sector, Aboriginal people, and people with lived experience of homelessness
- partner with Aboriginal stakeholders and communities to design and implement a strategy for early identification and responses to the needs of Aboriginal people vulnerable to homelessness; and build the capacity and resourcing of the Aboriginal Community Controlled Sector to deliver homelessness services
- evaluate the homelessness response to COVID-19, integrate the lessons learned into future practice, and develop protocols to inform actions in future emergencies or disasters
- regularly collect client outcomes data and feedback and use this to drive improvements to responses to homelessness.
Fast factsHomelessness Strategy
COVID-19 response 1 April 2020 to 31 January 2021
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Further information
Please contact Ian Goodwin, Deputy Auditor-General on 9275 7347 or by email.
Homelessness exists when a person does not have suitable accommodation alternatives. A person is considered to be experiencing homelessness if their current living arrangement:
- is in a dwelling that is inadequate; or
- has no tenure, or if their initial tenure is short and not extendable; or
- does not allow them to have control of, and access to space for social relations.
The number of people experiencing homelessness in New South Wales increased by 37 per cent between the last two censuses, from 27,479 in 2011, to 37,715 in 2016. New South Wales recorded the largest increase of all the states and territories in both the number of people experiencing homelessness and in the homeless rate (from 40.8 to 50.4 persons per 10,000).
The NSW Government's primary service response to homelessness is crisis, temporary and transitional accommodation, and support services, funded at more than $1.0 billion over four years from 2018–19. These are ‘commissioned services’ delivered by non‑government organisations under contracts with the Department of Communities and Justice (the Department) and out of scope for this audit. We assessed how the Department manages contracts for specialist homelessness services in our 2019 audit 'Contracting non‑government organisations'.
The policy framework for the NSW Government's response to homelessness is the NSW Homelessness Strategy 2018–23 (the Strategy), which is examined in this audit. The Department is responsible for the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Strategy. The Strategy comprises 21 actions, ten of which directly target people at risk of, or already experiencing, homelessness through measures such as:
- screening high school students for the risk of homelessness and providing supports
- assisting vulnerable people to maintain their tenancies in social housing or the private rental market
- providing purpose‑built social housing.
These ten actions comprise $160 million of the Strategy's $169 million funding.
In December 2019, the first evidence of the COVID‑19 virus emerged. People sleeping without shelter or in public places (sleeping rough) typically live in communal arrangements, with some having limited access to basic hygiene supplies or showering facilities. These factors may increase the risk of transmission of COVID‑19 amongst this population.
In response to the pandemic, the NSW Government provided additional funding for the Department to institute a range of actions aimed at preventing vulnerable people from becoming homeless, and people sleeping rough from contracting or transmitting the virus. These were informed by, but separate to, actions under the Homelessness Strategy.
This audit focused on the temporary accommodation provided to individuals experiencing street homelessness during the pandemic, and the new 'Together Home' program established in 2020 to transition people with experience or history sleeping rough from temporary accommodation into more sustainable longer‑term housing.
This audit assessed how effectively the Department is implementing the Homelessness Strategy and addressing street homelessness in its COVID‑19 response. In making this assessment, the audit examined whether the Department:
- has effectively developed an evidence‑based Strategy and established supporting arrangements to implement it
- is ensuring the Strategy is achieving its objectives and outcomes
- is effectively supporting people sleeping rough into temporary accommodation during COVID‑19 and to transition into more sustainable longer‑term housing.
ConclusionThe $169 million Homelessness Strategy will have a limited short‑term impact on homelessness across New South Wales.The Department designed the Strategy to build evidence to inform future state‑wide action rather than to end homelessness. The Department also received significantly less funding than it sought, and as a result, the Strategy's actions have a narrow reach in terms of the locations and the number of people targeted for assistance. The Department has clearly communicated its aims to intervene early to prevent people from experiencing homelessness; to provide effective supports to people experiencing homelessness; and to create an integrated person‑centred system. While these objectives are clear, they are not being pursued state‑wide. The Department recognised in its advice to government on Strategy resourcing that growing demand could not be met within current funding and housing supply, and that there was limited proof on effective preventative and early interventions in the available evidence base. Given the evidence threshold for new funding, the Department designed the Strategy to pilot approaches which help to identify the best prevention and early intervention measures for state‑wide roll out after the Strategy's five‑year term, subject to budget approval. The Department received significantly less funding than it sought for the Strategy. It repurposed existing resources, dropped some proposed actions and scaled others down to fit within the final funding envelope. While seeking to demonstrate what works to prevent homelessness or intervene earlier, the Department directed 95 per cent of the final Strategy funding to concrete actions supporting people at risk of, or experiencing, homelessness. The Department has put in place governance and operational arrangements which are supporting the implementation and evaluation of the Strategy, and it is broadly on track with reaching the target number of clients expected. The Department’s data shows that more than 4,100 people have received direct supports under Strategy actions. However, the reach of the Strategy remains constrained. Once fully implemented, most Strategy actions will be available in only a quarter of the state's local government areas, supporting around 8,200 people ‑ what equates to around 22 per cent of the number of people experiencing homelessness in New South Wales at the last census in 2016. There is a risk that future funding will not be secured – and Strategy actions not continued or scaled up – if the evidence on effectiveness is incomplete, mixed or unclear when the Strategy concludes. This sits against a backdrop of increasing need for housing and homelessness supports in the state that may become more acute once the full economic impacts of the COVID‑19 pandemic are felt. The Department effectively planned and implemented a crisis response to assist people sleeping on the streets during the COVID‑19 pandemic. The Department will need to do more to ensure a sustainable longer‑term response which prevents people returning to street homelessness.The Department's crisis response focused on people sleeping rough due to the public health risk of COVID‑19 transmission amongst this group. Of the approximately 32,500 people provided with temporary accommodation between 1 April 2020 and 31 January 2021, 4,355 were sleeping rough. As at 13 May 2021, only one case of COVID‑19 had been detected to date among the individuals who received assistance. The Department advises that around one‑quarter of all those placed in temporary accommodation were assisted into social housing or private rental accommodation. Within metropolitan Sydney, the Department established a dedicated team and contracted provider to connect people sleeping rough placed in hotels with support services, and to assist and monitor their transition to longer‑term housing. The Department’s data suggests that almost 38 per cent of the approximately 1,800 people who received this support were able to move to social housing or private rental accommodation. However, the Department did not track the housing outcomes for clients who were not provided with this support, or who were not engaged with housing or funded support services. The Department offers supports to people in temporary accommodation to assist them in finding longer term housing, and it has a policy to not knowingly exit someone from temporary accommodation into homelessness. However, it does not track housing outcomes for every client if they do not engage with the Department's housing or funded support services. The Department cannot precisely identify how many people sleeping rough assisted during COVID‑19 have returned to rough sleeping or other forms of homelessness. The Department’s data suggests that 72 per cent of the approximately 4,000 people sleeping rough assisted with temporary accommodation between April 2020 and April 2021 who exited left with an unknown housing outcome. The Department intends to conduct research in the future to better understand what happens to people who leave temporary accommodation without seeking further assistance. The Department also has limited data to understand whether the enhanced temporary accommodation program was more effective in helping to connect participants with services and support them into stable accommodation, than previous approaches. The Department extended an existing initiative for community housing providers to head lease properties in the private rental market and ensure support services for people who were sleeping rough before being assisted into enhanced temporary accommodation. As at April 2021, the Together Home program has assisted 400 people to obtain accommodation and supports for two years. However, the number of Together Home places is significantly less than what is required to provide housing for the more than 4,350 individuals who were sleeping rough prior to entering enhanced temporary accommodation. The Department advises it is using a combination of ‘business‑as‑usual’ options to assist other people sleeping rough into stable accommodation where Together Home places are not available, including social and affordable housing and supported transitional accommodation. It also intends to secure longer‑term housing options for Together Home clients after the two‑year support ends. But it is not clear how it will overcome longstanding housing challenges to do so, given the complexity of needs amongst this client group, the limited availability of affordable rental properties and the existing scale of unmet need for social housing in New South Wales. |
1. Key findings: the Homelessness Strategy
The Strategy's geographical and client reach is limited because it is building the evidence base on what works
The Department's objectives to intervene early, provide effective supports and create an integrated person‑centred system to address homelessness are clear, but are not being pursued state‑wide.
There were existing gaps in the available evidence which made it difficult for the Department to develop a holistic, state‑wide, long‑term solution to homelessness. Some of the actions under the Strategy have a degree of supporting evidence. Other actions are intended to generate evidence through pilots and by evaluating existing programs more robustly.
At least one Strategy action is available in each of the Department's 16 districts, and there are examples of the Department rolling out practice changes from Strategy pilots across the state. However, progress towards the Strategy aims is confined to pockets where actions are being trialled.
Once fully implemented, Strategy actions will be available in only a quarter of the state's 128 local government areas and will support approximately 8,200 people ‑ which equates to around 22 per cent of the number of people who were experiencing homelessness at the time of the last census in New South Wales in 2016 more than 37,000 people. This does not include the number of people at risk of homelessness.
A key gap in Strategy actions is addressing Aboriginal homelessness.
The Department received significantly less funding than sought and designed the Strategy to build the evidence base rather than eliminate homelessness
The Department could not meet the evidence threshold for a cost benefit analysis required by a Treasury business case, given the limited evidence available locally and internationally on what works to prevent homelessness or intervene earlier. The Department sought new, targeted investment to extend a small number of initiatives with proven effect, and to build the evidence base about other measures that work, rather than the quantum of funding required to end homelessness in New South Wales.
Even so, approved funding was significantly less than that sought by the Department. It repurposed existing resources, dropped some proposed actions and scaled others down to fit within the final funding envelope. It directed 95 per cent of the total Strategy funding to supports and accommodation for people at risk of or experiencing homelessness.
The Department intends to use the gathered data from implementation of the Strategy to expand effective prevention and early intervention measures after it concludes, subject to budget approval. It expects that, over time, these initiatives will reduce the demand for crisis services.
Actions may not be scaled up at the end of the Strategy's term, perpetuating the Strategy's limited reach and narrow impact on homelessness
The Department's approach of testing interventions and building the evidence base through the Strategy was well described and provided a clear rationale in its original advice to government. An evaluation framework has been designed to generate sufficient evidence on the overall Strategy and its individual actions for a cost benefit analysis to support a future budget bid.
The Department intends to use the findings from interim evaluation reports, due by September 2021, to determine the programs and pilots with promising evidence that should continue to the end of the Strategy term. It expects this to enable more qualitative and quantitative data to be available to the evaluations, as well as to support service continuity.
However, delays in delivery of some actions under the Strategy, and the time taken for outcomes to be achieved and show up in the data, will impact on the strength of the evidence available at the mid‑term and final Strategy evaluation points. This raises a risk that future funding for a comprehensive Strategy will not be secured ‑ and prevention and early intervention activities not continued or scaled up beyond pilot sites ‑ if the evidence on effectiveness is incomplete, mixed or unclear when the Strategy concludes.
Given its limited reach, even if the existing Strategy actions were retained, and no expansion occurred, it would continue to have a narrow impact on homelessness in New South Wales. This sits against a backdrop of increasing need for housing and homelessness supports in the state that may become more acute once the full economic impacts of the COVID‑19 pandemic are felt.
2. Key findings: the COVID‑19 response to homelessness
The Department effectively planned and implemented its homelessness response to the pandemic and reduced the risk of transmission of COVID‑19 for people sleeping rough
The Department's crisis response focused on people sleeping rough due to the public health risk of COVID‑19 transmission amongst this group.
The Department engaged with the specialist homelessness services sector from mid‑March 2020 to modify service delivery, advise on infection control and plan extra supports. It explored options with temporary accommodation providers to support self‑isolation for clients, and scaled up its assertive outreach patrols by staff, specialist caseworkers and health professionals to support people sleeping rough into crisis or temporary accommodation for safety.
The Minister directed the Department to address street homelessness in the COVID‑19 response using the Government’s second stage of stimulus funding. The Department procured hotel, motel or serviced apartment accommodation for 400 people who were sleeping rough, or unable to physically distance in large crisis accommodation centres, within a week of the ministerial direction, building on existing programs. The Department provided advice to the Minister on the need to adjust existing policy settings to meet the forecast demand for temporary accommodation services.
The Department secured additional temporary accommodation when and where it was required, to accommodate the number of people sleeping rough who wanted support. Between 1 April 2020 and 31 January 2021, the Department provided temporary accommodation to 32,158 individuals, of which 4,355 people were sleeping rough, totalling more than 70,000 nights of temporary accommodation and services.
The Department met regularly with NSW homelessness peak organisations and established a Taskforce involving other government agencies, peak organisations, and service providers, to assist in quickly executing the measure and resolving issues arising. The Taskforce built on existing collaborative arrangements in place to support cross‑sectoral coordination, enabling it to respond quickly to COVID‑19.
The Department worked with NSW Health and health providers to ensure its COVID‑19 response to homelessness was in line with health guidelines. As of May 2021, just one participant in the Department's enhanced temporary accommodation program had contracted COVID‑19.
The Department does not know how many people sleeping rough who were assisted with enhanced temporary accommodation have returned to homelessness
Within metropolitan Sydney, the Department established a specialist housing team, and contracted a non‑government provider, to connect people placed in hotels with support services, provide tailored support, and to assist and monitor their transition to longer‑term housing.
The Department’s data indicates that between May 2020 and 31 January 2021, over 1,800 people who had previously been sleeping rough had been engaged in this program, more than four times the expected client numbers. Almost half moved into further accommodation when they left the program, including people supported with longer‑term housing such as social housing, community leasing under the Together Home program, and private rental arrangements.
However, the Department did not track the housing outcomes for clients who were not provided with this support, or who disengaged from services. The Department advises that this would have required additional resourcing to do so.
The Department offers assistance to people in temporary accommodation to find longer term options, and has a policy to not knowingly exit someone from temporary accommodation into homelessness. However, it does not track housing outcomes for every client if they do not engage with the Department's housing or funded support services. It intends to conduct research in the future to better understand what happens to people who leave temporary accommodation without seeking further assistance from the Department.
The Department cannot identify precisely how many people sleeping rough who were assisted during COVID‑19 have returned to rough sleeping or other forms of homelessness. The Department’s data suggests that 72 per cent of the approximately 4,000 people formerly sleeping rough who left temporary accommodation between April 2020 and April 2021 left with an unknown housing outcome. This includes people who were not eligible for social housing, were stranded due to border closures, or who disengaged from the Department or funded support services.
The Department also has limited data to understand whether the enhanced temporary accommodation program was more effective in helping to connect participants with services and support them into stable accommodation, than previous approaches.
The Together Home program was established quickly to assist people into more permanent accommodation but will not meet demand as a standalone response
The Department established the Together Home program in September 2020 to provide longer‑term accommodation to people who were sleeping rough during the pandemic. Community housing providers head‑lease properties in the private rental market for two years and sub‑lease these to clients, while ensuring they receive additional support, such as health services, to help them maintain the lease.
Under the initial tranche of funding, the Together Home program aimed to support 400 people sleeping rough. This target was met by April 2021. Due to increased rental demand in many areas of the state, there were some delays in securing properties in certain areas. In addition, people on temporary visas, or with existing public housing debt, are ineligible for this program.
A further $29.0 million was provided to this program through the 2020–21 NSW Budget, creating 400 additional program places. However, the total number of 800 Together Home places will not be sufficient to provide housing for the more than 4,000 individuals who were sleeping rough prior to entering enhanced temporary accommodation.
The Department advises it is using a range of ‘business‑as‑usual’ options to assist other people sleeping rough into stable accommodation outside of the Together Home program. These options include social housing, supported transitional accommodation, subsidised private rental, boarding houses, and referral to mental health and substance addiction rehabilitation facilities.
The Department’s latest annual state‑wide street count suggested that the number of people sleeping rough across New South Wales decreased by 13 per cent between February 2020 and February 2021. The Department has acknowledged that it could do more to monitor and support the housing outcomes for people in temporary accommodation after they exit.
The Department has plans to secure longer‑term housing options for Together Home clients after the two‑year program, through commissioned community housing and private rental assistance. However, it is not clear how this will overcome existing housing challenges given the complexity of needs amongst this client group, the limited availability of affordable rental properties and the existing scale of unmet need for social housing.
3. Recommendations
By July 2022, the Department of Communities and Justice should:
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use data and analysis identified through the Homelessness Strategy 2018–2023 and provide advice to the NSW Government on sustainably addressing demand and unmet need for homelessness supports
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use the evidence obtained through the Homelessness Strategy 2018–2023 to commence development of a comprehensive strategy to address homelessness, linked to the government’s ten‑year plan for social housing and 20‑year housing strategy
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establish and sustain governance arrangements that enable input to key decisions on homelessness policy from partner agencies, the specialist homelessness services sector, the community housing sector, Aboriginal people and people with lived experience of homelessness
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in partnership with Aboriginal stakeholders and communities, design and implement a strategy for early identification and responses to the needs of Aboriginal people vulnerable to homelessness; and build the capacity and resourcing of the Aboriginal Community Controlled Sector to deliver homelessness services
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evaluate the homelessness response to COVID‑19 and integrate the lessons learned into future practice; and develop protocols to inform actions in future emergencies/disasters
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establish and sustain a means to regularly collect client outcomes data and feedback; and use this to drive improvements to responses to homelessness.
This chapter considers how effectively the NSW Homelessness Strategy was developed and is currently being implemented by the Department of Communities and Justice.
This chapter examines how effectively the Department of Communities and Justice addressed homelessness in its response to the COVID‑19 pandemic, and how well it is applying lessons learned from the pandemic to future policy and service development.
Appendix one – Response from agency
Appendix two – Actions within the NSW Homelessness Strategy 2018–23
Appendix three – Reported progress on Homelessness Strategy actions to date (unaudited)
Appendix four – Key homelessness data collections
Appendix six – Key measures in the COVID 19 response to homelessness
Appendix seven – About the audit
Appendix eight – Performance auditing
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Parliamentary reference - Report number #350 - released (4 June 2021).
Actions for Supporting the District Criminal Court
Supporting the District Criminal Court
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.
Priority | Target resolution time | Target percentage in time (%) |
1. Critical | 4 hours | 80 |
2. High | 1 day | 80 |
3. Moderate | 3 days | 85 |
4. Low | 5 days | 85 |
Source: Department of Communities and Justice, 2019.
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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.
Priority | 2017 | 2018 |
All | 4,379 | 9,186 |
1. Critical | 48 | 91 |
2. High | 128 | 315 |
Source: Audit Office of NSW analysis of Department of Communities and Justice data, 2019.
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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 |
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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© 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.
Parliamentary Reference: Report number #329 - released 18 December 2019
Actions for Planning, Industry and Environment 2019
Planning, Industry and Environment 2019
This report outlines the results of audits of the financial statements of agencies now grouped in the NSW Planning, Industry and Environment cluster.
Unqualified audit opinions were issued for 56 of the 66 cluster agencies’ 30 June 2019 financial statements. Ten audits remain incomplete. The cluster agencies need to improve the timeliness of financial reporting.
The Audit Office continued to identify issues regarding unprocessed Aboriginal land claims and the recognition of Crown land. ‘Auditor-General’s reports to parliament have recommended action to reduce the level of unprocessed land claims since 2007. However, the number of unprocessed claims continued to increase’, Margaret Crawford said.
One in five internal control findings were repeat issues. Key themes included information technology, asset management and improvements required to expense and payroll controls.
The report makes several recommendations including:
- Property NSW should urgently address the deficiencies in the lease data used to calculate the impact of the new leasing standard effective from 1 July 2019
- the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment should prioritise action to reduce unprocessed Aboriginal land claims
- the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment should ensure the Crown land database is complete and accurate so state agencies and local government councils are better informed about the Crown land they control.
This report analyses the results of our audits of financial statements of the Planning, Industry and Environment cluster agencies for the year ended 30 June 2019. The table below summarises our key observations.
1. Machinery of Government changes
Creation of the Planning, Industry and Environment cluster |
The Machinery of Government (MoG) changes abolished the former Planning and Environment cluster and former Industry cluster, and created the Planning, Industry and Environment cluster on 1 July 2019. The Department of Planning and Environment (DPE), the Department of Industry (DOI), the Office of Environment and Heritage, and the Office of Local Government were abolished and the majority of their functions were transferred to the new Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE). |
The Department of Planning, Industry and Environment is still in the process of implementing changes |
The MoG changes bring risks and challenges to the cluster. A MoG Steering Committee, with the support of various project control groups and working groups, identified and developed responses to key risks arising from the changes. However, the DPIE will take some time to fully integrate the policies, systems and processes of the abolished Departments and agencies. |
2. Financial reporting
Audit opinions | Unqualified audit opinions were issued for 56 of the 66 cluster agencies' 30 June 2019 financial statements audits. Ten financial statements audits are still ongoing. |
Timeliness of financial reporting |
Fifty-five of the 57 agencies subject to statutory deadlines submitted their financial statements on time. Due to issues identified during the audit, 13 financial statements audits were not completed and audit opinions issued by the statutory deadline. Agencies prepared and submitted their early close procedures in accordance with the mandatory timeframe set by NSW Treasury. However, 17 of the 49 agencies where we reviewed early close procedures were assessed as either partially addressing or not addressing one or more of the mandatory requirements. The cluster agencies could benefit from an increased focus on early close procedures. |
Introduction of AASB 16 'Leases' |
We noted errors in the lease data used in Property NSW's AASB 16 impact calculations, which affect both Property NSW and other government agencies. These errors were significant enough to present a risk of material misstatements to the financial statements of Property NSW and other government agencies in future reporting periods. We had similar findings in our recent performance audit on 'Property Asset Utilisation', which highlighted issues with the quality of Property NSW's records. Recommendation: Property NSW should urgently address the deficiencies in the lease data used to calculate the impact of the new leasing standard effective from 1 July 2019. |
Unprocessed Aboriginal land claims have continued to increase |
Despite an increase in the number of claims resolved, the number of unprocessed Aboriginal land claims increased by 7.2 per cent from the prior year to 35,855 at 30 June 2019. Claims can be made over Crown land assets of the DPIE or other government agencies. Until claims are resolved, there is an uncertainty over who is entitled to the land and the uses and activities that can be carried out on the land. We first recommended action to address unprocessed claims in 2007. Recommendation (repeat issue): The DPIE should prioritise action to reduce unprocessed Aboriginal land claims. |
3. Audit observations
Internal controls |
One in five internal control issues identified and reported to management in 2018–19 were repeat issues. The lack of user access review was the most common IT general control issue in the cluster. |
Drought relief |
The NSW Government announced an emergency drought relief package of $500 million in 2018, in addition to other financial assistance measures already in place. Limited documentation and written agreements between relevant delivery agencies resulted in a $31.0 million misstatement relating to grant revenue. |
Recognition of Crown land |
Crown land is an important asset of the state. Management and recognition of Crown land assets is weakened when there is confusion over who is responsible for a particular Crown land parcel. Last year we recommended the DOI should ensure the database of Crown land is complete and accurate. While the DOI has commenced actions to improve the database, this continued to be an issue in 2018–19. Recommendation (repeat issue): The DPIE should ensure the Crown land database is complete and accurate so state agencies and local government councils are better informed about the Crown land they control. |
Developer contributions | The former DPE continued to accumulate more developer contributions revenues than it spent on infrastructure projects. Total unspent funds increased to $274 million at 30 June 2019. |
This report provides parliament and other users of the Planning, Industry and Environment cluster agencies financial statements with the results of our audits, our observations, analysis, conclusions and recommendations in the following areas:
- financial reporting
- audit observations.
This cluster was created by the Machinery of Government changes on 1 July 2019. This report is focused on agencies in the Planning, Industry and Environment cluster from 1 July 2019. However, these agencies were all in other clusters during 2018–19. Please refer to the section on Machinery of Government changes for more details.
Machinery of Government (MoG) refers to how the government organises the structures and functions of the public service. MoG changes are where the government reorganises these structures and functions that are given effect by Administrative orders.
The MoG changes, announced following the NSW State election on 23 March 2019, created the Planning, Industry and Environment (PIE) cluster. The Administrative Changes Orders issued on 2 April 2019, 1 May 2019 and 28 June 2019 gave effect to these changes. These orders became effective on 1 July 2019.
Section highlights
The 2019 MoG changes significantly impacted the former Planning and Environment, and Industry clusters and agencies.
- The PIE cluster combines most of the functions and agencies of the former Planning and Environment and Industry clusters from 1 July 2019.
- The Department of Planning, Industry and Environment is the principal agency in the PIE cluster.
- The MoG changes bring risks and challenges to the PIE cluster.
- A MoG Steering Committee was established to oversee the transitional processes.
- The full integration of the systems and processes will not be completed in the near future.
Financial reporting is an important element of good governance. Confidence and transparency in public sector decision making are enhanced when financial reporting is accurate and timely.
This chapter outlines our audit observations related to the financial reporting of agencies in the Planning, Industry and Environment (PIE) cluster for 2019. In this chapter, the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment is referred to as DPIE, the former Department of Planning and Environment as DPE, and the former Department of Industry as DOI.
Section highlights
- Unqualified audit opinions were issued for all completed 30 June 2019 financial statements audits. However, some cluster agencies can further enhance the quality of financial reporting.
- Timeliness of financial reporting remains an issue for 13 agencies.
- Deficiencies were identified in the data used to calculate the impact of AASB 16 ‘Leases’ effective from 1 July 2019. Property NSW should urgently address these deficiencies.
- Unprocessed Aboriginal land claims continue to increase. DPIE should prioritise action to reduce unprocessed Aboriginal land claims.
Appropriate financial controls help ensure the efficient and effective use of resources and administration of agency policies. They are essential for quality and timely decision making.
This chapter outlines our audit observations and insights from our financial statement audits of agencies in the Planning, Industry and Environment (PIE) cluster for 2019. In this chapter, the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment is referred to as DPIE, the former Department of Planning and Environment as DPE, and the former Department of Industry as DOI.
Section highlights
- One in five issues identified and reported to management in 2018–19 were repeat issues.
- The lack of user access review was the most common IT general control issue in the PIE cluster.
- The PIE cluster provided significant financial assistance for drought relief.
- There continues to be significant deficiencies in Crown land records. The DPIE should ensure the Crown land database is complete and accurate.
- Unspent developer contributions funds continued to build up in 2018–19.
Appendix one – List of 2019 recommendations
Appendix two – Status of 2018 recommendations
Appendix three – Cluster agencies
Appendix four – Financial data
Appendix five – Management letter findings
Appendix six – Timeliness of financial reporting
Copyright notice
© 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.