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.

The NSW Government’s ‘program evaluation initiative’, introduced to assess whether service delivery programs achieve expected outcomes and value for money, is largely ineffective according to a report released today by NSW Auditor-General, Margaret Crawford.

Government services, in areas such as public order and safety, health and education, are delivered by agencies through a variety of programs. In 2016–17, the NSW Government estimates that it will spend over $73 billion on programs to deliver services.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #277 - released 3 November 2016

New South Wales has a lower rate of foodborne illness than the national average. This reflects some good practices in the NSW Food Authority’s approach to monitoring food safety standards. It also is a factor of the long-standing commitment by local councils’ to ensuring retail food businesses meet these standards.

To ensure foodborne illness remains low, the Authority needs to better monitor its arrangements with councils which inspect retail food businesses on its behalf, and receive additional and more timely information from councils on compliance with food safety standards.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #274 - released 15 September 2016

The management of the sale and lease of Crown land is not effective because oversight of decision-making is inadequate and community involvement is limited, according to a report released today by NSW Auditor-General, Margaret Crawford.

The audit found limited oversight of sales and leases of Crown land by the Department of Industry - Lands. The Department has only just started monitoring whether tenants are complying with lease conditions, and does not have a clear view of what is happening on most leased Crown land. The majority of guidance provided to staff has not been updated in the past decade, contributing to staff not correctly implementing policies on rental rebates, unpaid rent, rent redeterminations and the direct negotiation of sales and leases on Crown land.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #273 - released 8 September 2016

There are 63 agencies in the DTIRIS cluster. These agencies include nine electricity and eight water agencies that were reported in the NSW Auditor-General’s report to Parliament Volume Five 2014 on 11 November 2014. Commentary in this volume is on the remaining 46 DTIRIS cluster agencies. The findings found the quality of financial statements in the trade and investment cluster needs to improve.

The quality of financial statements in the health cluster continues to improve with significantly fewer misstatements. The financial statements of all cluster agencies received unqualified audit opinions. Health has maintained or bettered its emergency triage performance and the percentage of patients admitted for elective surgery within clinically appropriate timeframes has improved.

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

In 2013-14, the NSW Government electricity businesses generated $9 billion in revenue ($9.6 billion during 2012-13) and achieved a combined net profit after tax of $1.5 billion ($1.6 billion). The combined profit after tax for NSW Distributors was $1.2 billion in 2013-14 down from $1.3 billion in 2012-13. The Distributors’ revenues decreased by $205 million to $6.8 billion in 2013-14, largely due to lower consumption by customers associated with milder weather conditions, economic impacts, energy efficiency measures and an increase in the number of customers using solar energy.

NSW Government agencies with large landholdings need to better manage their contaminated sites.

When contaminated sites are reported to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) there are long delays in assessing the extent of contamination. The EPA also lacks the management controls to ensure that all significantly contaminated sites are actively monitored and key milestones for remediation are met.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #245 - released 10 July 2014

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