The Auditor-General, Margaret Crawford released a report today highlighting a decline in net profits of electricity agencies and the distributions the government received from these agencies. The report also details continuing issues in the management of Crown Land and TAFE NSW's student administration system.

Overcrowding in the NSW prison system continues to worsen along with the backlog of cases in the District Court, according to a report released by the New South Wales Auditor-General, Margaret Crawford on the annual financial statements audits in the Justice cluster.

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

Many factors are contributing to the overcrowding of the NSW prison system. This is in turn putting pressure on operations in the courts, and could ultimately impact rates of reoffending.

The lack of capacity is impacting more than just the NSW prison system. Over the weekend of 31 October 2015 some inmates held by the NSW Police Force could not be brought before a court because of capacity shortages.

This was one of the findings reported in Volume Seven 2015 of the Auditor-General’s Report to Parliament, which covers law and order services provided by the NSW Police Force, Department of Justice, and NSW Trustee and Guardian.

Demand for emergency services increased by eight per cent, in response to 187,282 incidents during 2014-15. Total volunteer numbers have risen over the last three years by 2.4 per cent to 98,536, improving capacity to deal with such incidents. NSW Rural Fire Service had only five emergency declarations in 2014-15 compared to 48 the year before, resulting in natural disaster expenditure falling by $89.0 million.
 
Fire and Rescue NSW response time to incidents and NSW Rural Fire Service fire containment continue to improve.
 
These are some of the matters highlighted in Part 2 of Volume Seven 2015 of the Auditor-General’s Report to Parliament, which covers emergency services agencies.

This report examines selected areas of government activity to see if sufficient information was available to identify and assess changes in productivity. The areas examined were primary and secondary school public education, acute inpatient care in NSW public hospitals, CityRail, the NSW Police Force, and the NSW Local Court.

Productivity is commonly defined as the amount of output per unit of input.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #256 - released 16 July 2015

NSW Government agencies have sound processes for implementing performance audit recommendations in Auditor-General’s Reports to Parliament. There are many cases of good practice. For example, some agencies formed a steering committee and developed a detailed plan to implement recommendations. Another incorporated the implementation of recommendations into both its business plan and the work plans of individual officers who were managing projects. Most agencies also used their Audit and Risk Committees to monitor recommendations.
 
We found some cases where agencies can improve how they coordinate actions to address recommendations. Most agencies were not revisiting these actions to determine whether they remain appropriate.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #254 - released 24 June 2015