The Auditor-General for New South Wales, Margaret Crawford, released a report today examining NSW Health’s management of health and safety risks to nurses and junior doctors in high demand hospital wards over the past five years, including during the first six months of the 2020 COVID-19 health emergency. The Auditor-General found that while NSW Health effectively managed most incidents and risks to the physical health and safety of hospital staff durin

The Auditor-General for New South Wales, Margaret Crawford, released a report today that examined the effectiveness of the waste levy and grants for waste infrastructure in minimising the amount of waste sent to landfill and increasing recycling rates.   The audit found that the waste levy has a positive impact on diverting waste from landfill. However, while the levy rates increase each year in line with the consumer price index, the EPA has not conduc

The Auditor-General for New South Wales, Margaret Crawford, released a report today on how well four councils managed their local infrastructure contributions during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 financial years.  Local infrastructure contributions, also known as developer contributions, are collected from developers to pay for local infrastructure such as drainage, local roads, open space and community facilities. Controls over local infrastructure contribut

This is a follow-up to the Auditor-General's November 2016 report on the CBD South East Sydney Light Rail project. This follow-up report assessed whether Transport for NSW has updated and consolidated information about project costs and benefits. The audit found that Transport for NSW has not consistently and accurately updated project costs, limiting the transparency of reporting to the public. The Auditor-General reports that the total cost of the pr

Sydney Trains patronage has increased by close to 34 per cent over the last five years, and Transport for NSW (TfNSW) expects the growth in patronage to continue over the next 30 years. As patronage increases there are more passengers entering and exiting stations, moving within stations to change services, and waiting on platforms. As a result, some Sydney metropolitan train stations are becoming increasingly crowded. There are three main causes of sta

This report outlines whether the Department of Customer Service (the department) has effective controls in place to ensure the integrity of data in the Births, Deaths and Marriages Register (the register), and to prevent unauthorised access and misuse. The audit found that the department has processes in place to ensure that the information entered in the register is accurate and that any changes to it are validated. Although there are controls in place

The WestConnex project is a motorway project that will link the M4 and M5 motorways with 33km of new motorway tunnels in Sydney. We conducted a performance audit of the WestConnex business case review process in 2014. Since then, the scope and projects included in WestConnex have changed. This audit will assess whether Transport for NSW and Infrastructure NSW effectively assessed and justified major scope changes to the WestConnex project since December

The Justice Health and Forensic Mental Health Network (Justice Health) is responsible for providing health care to adults in custodial environments. In order to facilitate access to healthcare, Justice Health works with Corrective Services NSW to manage patient access to care in custodial environments along with access to healthcare in non-custodial environments such as hospitals or specialist community health services. Healthcare is also provided by pri

Freight is a critical component of the New South Wales economy. It is currently estimated to be worth nearly $66.0 billion a year to the economy. The economic growth and prosperity of New South Wales depends on the safe, efficient and reliable movement of goods. The NSW Government Future Transport 2056 strategy estimates that by 2056, 12 million people will live in New South Wales, and freight volumes will double in the Greater Sydney area and increase b

Business continuity and disaster recovery planning assists organisations to prepare for and ensure they can respond to an incident or crisis. This includes natural disasters and pandemic events like COVID-19. Ideally, business continuity plans would ensure organisations are prepared to respond effectively to the impact of incidents or crises on a wide range of areas including service delivery, safety and availability of staff, availability of IT and othe