The Family and Community Services report was released today by the Acting Deputy Auditor-General. Financial reporting within the cluster continues to improve but there are opportunities to improve governance and performance reporting.

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

We found no significant difference in the funding of government and opposition electorates. However, more money was given to electorates that were safely held by the major parties. These seats received $1.29 for every dollar given to marginal and independent seats with government marginals getting the least. Electorates also receive different levels of funding according to which region they are in. Such variations may reflect valid agency objectives such as meeting State Plan targets or addressing socio-economic disadvantage.

But while agencies publish who gets what, they do not adequately evaluate or explain what grant programs have achieved. As a result, there is a risk that New South Wales may not get the best value for its spending. We recommend that agencies regularly evaluate their grant programs and publish the results.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #186 - released 6 May 2009

The audit reviewed policies and practices in large government and non-government residential centres to determine if policies and practices protected the human and legal rights, safety and dignity of residents.

The report indicates that practices in both government and non-government centres fail to protect adequately the human and legal rights, safety and dignity of residents. Factors contributing to this situation are the absence of minimum criteria for the protection of residents’ human and legal rights, safety and dignity, inadequate policies to direct service delivery, the absence of staff training to reinforce practices, low levels of supervision and the absence of effective monitoring systems to trigger a response to service deficiencies. Even where policies have been developed to guide practices, the nature of institutional care (the environment renders some policies ineffective), inadequate implementation, inadequate monitoring of practices and lack of compliance results in the centre’s failure to protect people living there.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #40 - released 26 June 1997