The Department of Primary Industries (DPI) has a crucial role in assisting the irrigation industry to respond to the conflicting demands placed upon the state’s water resources. The State Plan emphasises the importance of water to agriculture, and gives DPI responsibility to use its training programs to help farmers continue to increase water use efficiency. DPI needs to work closely with agencies with which it shares responsibilities in the State Plan to ensure that its water use efficiency activities contribute to the State Plan goals. It needs to work closely with Treasury to document the services it will require to do this, the resources which will be needed, and how its success will be measured. This will ensure that DPI is well placed to continue to assist the NSW farming industry to adapt and survive periods of reduced water availability. 

Parliamentary reference - Report number #172 - released 21 November 2007

The Ambulance Service of New South Wales has substantially implemented the 28 recommendations of the 2001 audit report that it accepted. It has also introduced significant new initiatives to improve performance that were not part of the 2001 recommendations. It has made substantial changes to its organisation and operations to implement these changes. Many of the changes are still proceeding. The Service has addressed a key finding of the 2001 audit report - that it did not have adequate, relevant or credible management data for decision making. The Service now has five years of operational data from the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #167 - released 6 June 2007

Many projects, both Partnership Against Homelessness and by individual agencies, have shown good results or led to improvements. One example is helping mental health patients maintain stable housing. Another is providing street outreach services to homeless people in inner Sydney. Despite these efforts, we were unable to determine how well the government is responding to homelessness statewide. This is because there are no statewide performance measures or targets on homelessness. Also there is limited benchmarking, and no formal means of spreading information on homelessness initiatives and projects.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #165 - released 2 May 2007

Both the University of New South Wales' Internal Audit and HR reports identified serious deficiencies in the operation and management of the Education Training Centre (ETC). This performance audit verified those findings where appropriate, and they are referred to or incorporated within this report. In addition, we identified other weaknesses that are also presented here. All the findings point to a serious lack of management controls, proper accountability and management practices within ETC.

The Audit Office has a concern whether other activities within the University, or indeed within any other university, could be functioning with similar lack of corporate governance and accountability arrangements. The Audit Office considers that there is an urgent need for the University, and for other universities, to review their corporate governance and accountability framework.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #91 - released 21 November 2001

This performance audit indicates that the Service has considerable work to do to reach its aspirations of being recognised amongst leading examples of best practice services. The commitment of the Service to serving the community and the professionalism of the Service's officers is not in question. It is, however, apparent that a number of barriers to performance will need to be overcome for the Service to perform as well as it would wish.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #80 - released 7 March 2001

The Audit Office recognises that TAFE NSW has undergone significant change in the last decade in order to improve service delivery. Whilst the focus of change has been TAFE NSW's core educational role, administration has also benefited. The Quality Management Systems introduced by the Institutes are an example.

The Audit Office is of the opinion that TAFE NSW needs a means by which the efficiency and effectiveness of administrative functions can be assessed notwithstanding initiatives by certain Institutes to introduce monitoring, benchmarking and reporting of administration. In the interests of accountability, TAFE NSW requires the establishment of a common performance reporting framework for administration in each Institute and across Institutes. Along with other key result areas of TAFE NSW’s operations, a reporting framework would better able the TAFE Commission Board (the Board) to inform the Minister for Education, in compliance with the Act, of the efficiency and effectiveness of the administrative functions.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #79 - released 6 February 2001