The report includes comments on his financial audits of NSW Government transport, planning and industry agencies for 2009-10. A key recommendation from the report is that the New South Wales Government identify lessons learnt from the metro experience and ensure that future decision processes are developed to ensure the State never again expends such a large amount of scarce transport funding dollars and valuable time on a project that does not proceed.

The report includes comments on his financial audits of NSW Government environment, climate change and water agencies. The audits of these agencies’ financial reports for the year ended 30 June 2010 resulted in one qualified Independent Auditor’s Report. Sydney Water has not recognised assets and liabilities of the Build-Own-Operate schemes in their statement of financial position. The combined profit after tax of the four largest water utilities increased substantially from $300 million in 2008-09 to $584 million in 2009-10. Distributions to the Government were $379 million up 17 per cent or $55 million from last year.

The final Budget result for 2009-10 was a surplus of $994 million, originally budgeted to be a $990 million deficit. If the Commonwealth Government’s capital stimulus funding had been excluded, the result would have been a deficit of $861 million. Employee costs (excluding superannuation costs) increased by approximately 3.5 per cent compared to 7.5 per cent in the prior year.
 
“I have issued a qualified Independent Auditor’s Report as the State has not recognised the value of Crown Reserves and the infrastructure on those reserves that should be recorded as an asset,” Mr Achterstraat said. 

The Government is not able to provide assurance that it is safeguarding its holdings of sensitive personal information because its policy has not been properly implemented. This is likely to remain the case until there are clear, mandatory, minimum standards that agencies sign up to, and scrutiny of performance against these standards is strengthened.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #207 - released 20 October 2010

The department has a systematic approach to receiving, investigating and responding to reports of pollution incidents. However, the department does not analyse and report on the extent of environmental harm caused by pollution incidents reported to it, whether its response has minimised harm to the environment, whether its regulatory approach has improved compliance, particularly by Environment Protection Licence (EPL) holders (licensees).

Parliamentary reference - Report number #205 - released 15 September 2010

In reviewing both the severance pay guidelines and a sample of payments, we found the guidelines to be clear and all except two payments were made in accordance with them. In these two cases the severance payment was stipulated in the employment contract guaranteeing the STE a minimum of six months pay on termination, irrespective of the length of service.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #201 - released 16 June 2010