The Audit Office is of the opinion that the RTA is taking positive steps in planning for road maintenance and in many instances follows better practice. There are, however, some important improvements which need to be implemented in order to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of that function.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #69 - released 1 December 1999

The Audit Office is of the opinion that cost of administration at the University of Western Sydney is unnecessarily high and could be reduced. In addition, its approach to administration can place barriers in the way of potential students and other users of the University. To its credit, the University has recognised that administrative costs are high and is developing plans to reduce those costs. The Audit Office considers that there is now an urgent need to accelerate those activities and to move from planning to implementation. Further delays will be costly and will affect the service the University provides to its customers, the students and other users.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #67 - released 17 November 1999

A lot of groundwork has been done in NSW to move towards improved performance accountability through the use of key performance indicators (KPIs). Recent initiatives have focussed attention on improving the quality and consistency of performance measurement. This audit concludes that, taken overall, NSW has a considerable array of performance information publicly reported. However, there are two substantial deficiencies with present arrangements, these being what individual agencies report, and how they measure what they choose to report, varies across the NSW public sector.

Although there are efforts towards establishing a Government-wide approach, currently, no overall approach nor any overall guiding framework, standards or methodology have been introduced to engender consistency in the types of KPIs reported by agencies or the methods used to produce such information. NSW performance reporting systems also lack independent assessment and validation of reported information. As a result, whatever information is reported has not been subject to the rigour of independent review. This would not be tolerated for financial information and it is anomalous that performance information goes unvalidated.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #64 - released 31 August 1999