Auditor-General, Margaret Crawford released a report on the planning and environment cluster today, concluding that the quality of financial reporting is improving. However, the cluster can improve its financial controls and governance framework.

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 Public Service Commission is making good progress with leading the implementation of public sector management reforms, according to a report released today by the Acting New South Wales Auditor-General, Tony Whitfield.

'The Commission developed a sound evidence base for the reforms and gained wide public sector support by engaging with agency heads and using public sector working groups to develop options', said the Acting Auditor-General. 'They developed good guidance for government agencies and have improved the senior executive structure in the NSW public sector', he added.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #264 - released 28 January 2016

In 1998 NSW Health developed Waste Management Guidelines to promote continuous improvement in waste management across the public health sector. Systematic implementation of the Guidelines was impeded in 1999- 2000 by resistance from the waste industry and transport workers. Since then, NSW Health has not actively promoted waste management in public hospitals. As a consequence Area Health Services (AHSs) and hospitals have developed separate and individual responses to waste management. This has resulted in inconsistent management of waste by public hospitals, inappropriate segregation of waste and additional costs of waste disposal.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #105 - released 10 December 2002

In our view, the agencies we studied cannot be sure that the grants they allocate align with their corporate objectives, and that program outcomes are achieved. This is mainly due to problems with grant selection and the evaluation of results. It was good to see that most of the grants programs had funding objectives which were fairly clear. But we found problems across most programs which could affect the fair and equitable selection of grants, such as, often no procedures for assessing applications, no assessment guidelines for advisory committees, often no clear rationale for assessments and poor documentation of the reasons for decisions.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #104 - released 4 December 2002

Reform of procurement in the NSW public health system is a huge, complex and difficult task. Much thought has been given to this reform. An immense amount of planning and preparatory work is required, and is apparent. In our opinion, at this time, the NSW public health system is making only limited progress towards achieving the economies in purchasing that its size and market dominance could deliver. While millions of dollars in savings are potentially available, much needs to be done to realise this. It is critical that all those involved, at all levels, ensure that reform is given priority, and driven through to fruition.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #102 - released 25 September 2002