Unqualified audit opinions were issued on the above corporations’ 30 June 2013 financial statements. During the year, Treasury issued TC 13/01 ‘Mandatory early close procedures for 2013’. This Circular aimed to improve the quality and timeliness of agencies’ annual financial statements. In 2012-13, application of the circular was made mandatory for State owned corporations. As a result, the port corporations were required to perform the early close procedures. All the port corporations were successful in performing the procedures, which helped them submit financial statements by an earlier due date. The early close procedures also resulted in general improvements to the quality of most financial statements.

The report recommends all transport entities should do more to reduce excessive annual leave balances to ensure they will comply with new targets set by the Premier, RailCorp, Sydney Trains and NSW Trains should minimise the amount of overtime bonuses paid to train drivers and that Transport for NSW should set targets to measure the overall satisfaction of train users.

Decisions to relocate government agencies to non-metropolitan areas are not made purely for cost reasons. They can also serve government policy objectives, such as promoting regional economic development.

Regardless of the policy objectives that may exist, I would expect that decisions on individual agency relocations would be based on sound business cases. Those business cases would show how the relocation achieves any relevant government objectives, what costs (or savings) would be involved, logistical considerations such as obtaining appropriate accommodation and staff, and any impacts on levels service to the public.

In my view, the existence of government policy objectives does not remove the need for individual decisions to be made in a transparent, rational and accountable manner. Responsible public servants should provide the appropriate information to government to allow it to judge how best to implement its policies.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #147 - released 14 December 2005

About one in every twelve Sydney people travels by train each weekday.

Unplanned disruptions to services are inevitable, even on the best-run railways.

Because of the complexities of Sydney’s rail network, a single event can disrupt many services.

From a passenger’s perspective, three issues are important –

• how quickly the disruption is fixed (“When will my train arrive?”)
• the accuracy of information provided about the disruption (“Should I change my travel/meeting/other arrangements?”)
• how often the disruptions occur (“Should I give up on rail travel?”).

In this audit, we looked at how well RailCorp responds when there are routine disruptions to its CityRail passenger services. We focused on how RailCorp manages passenger journeys and informs passengers.

This report informs Parliament and the community about the limitations of the current system, and what more needs to be done in order to minimise the impact of disruptions on passengers.

It should also help passengers judge the extent to which they can rely on the information they receive, and to better understand some of the obstacles faced by staff.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #139 - released 22 June 2005

Periodically we review the extent to which agencies have implemented the recommendations they accepted from our earlier audits.

This gives Parliament and the public an update on the extent of progress made.

In this follow-up audit, we examine changes following our May 2002 report on how well the:

• State Transit Authority maintained its buses
• Ministry of Transport administered contracts for the provision of regular passenger bus services.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #138 - released 14 June 2005

The Audit Office is of the opinion that, whilst all universities have developed policies to manage POW and to protect IP rights, many of those polices are outdated and require urgent review. Many of them do not adequately protect the universities or provide adequate compensation for the use of their resources or their name. There also seems to be a lack of clarity for accountability to monitor and enforce the policy. Whilst greater attention seems to have been given to protect the intellectual property rights, which mainly arise as a consequence of research projects, there is a need to review and revisit those policies as well.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #71 - released 7 February 2000