Overall, the NSW Police Force (the Force) is not meeting its target for responding to urgent calls for assistance. Today, one in four complaints is about customer service. Victims of crime report issues including difficulties in contacting an officer and frustration at having to wait for an officer to return to duty to find out about their case. The timeliness of investigations is also at risk when follow-up is delayed. Seventy per cent of commanders surveyed indicated that rosters did not support continuity of investigations or victims’ needs.

We are also concerned that the current roster pattern may not be in the best interest of the health and safety of officers. Sick and injury leave is higher in NSW than other states and the Force is yet to assess the extent to which rosters may contribute to this. The Force also needs to do more to protect its general duties officers from fatigue in line with contemporary practice for managing shiftwork.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #173 - released 5 December 2007

The Department of Primary Industries (DPI) has a crucial role in assisting the irrigation industry to respond to the conflicting demands placed upon the state’s water resources. The State Plan emphasises the importance of water to agriculture, and gives DPI responsibility to use its training programs to help farmers continue to increase water use efficiency. DPI needs to work closely with agencies with which it shares responsibilities in the State Plan to ensure that its water use efficiency activities contribute to the State Plan goals. It needs to work closely with Treasury to document the services it will require to do this, the resources which will be needed, and how its success will be measured. This will ensure that DPI is well placed to continue to assist the NSW farming industry to adapt and survive periods of reduced water availability. 

Parliamentary reference - Report number #172 - released 21 November 2007

Between 2004 and 2006, the number of signalling failures, signalling downtime and the number of trains delayed as a result of signal failures all fell. RailCorp’s on-time running performance improved over the same period. The fall in failures is a clear indication of improved performance. Changes in the definition of on-time and to the timetable during 2005 and 2006 however make it difficult to determine whether improvements in response downtime and signalling delays are due to a true performance improvement. To build upon this strong base, RailCorp needs to determine with more confidence the number and duration of signalling failures the network can tolerate without impacting on service levels.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #170 - released 15 August 2007

The NSW Police Force has done well to maintain a downward trend in household burglaries in NSW since 2001. Police recognise the impact this crime has on the community’s perception of security and safety. Success has come from a continued focus on prevention and enforcement. However, there are other factors which have influenced this result. These include a rise in the rate and length of imprisonment, the heroin drought in 2001, increases in the number of heroin users entering treatment, low levels of unemployment, and increases in the average weekly earnings of young males.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #169 - released 27 June 2007

We see considerable potential for the Ministry of Transport to plan and manage interchanges more effectively, so as to make better use of our public transport network. We believe that the Ministry now needs to focus more on multi-modal transport planning and interchange performance. It needs to assign responsibility for the coordination and oversight of inter-modal operations to an entity resourced for the purpose. Without this it will continue to be very difficult to identify and address unmet needs, seek and secure stakeholder funding, and monitor and evaluate system performance.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #168 - released 6 June 2007

The Ambulance Service of New South Wales has substantially implemented the 28 recommendations of the 2001 audit report that it accepted. It has also introduced significant new initiatives to improve performance that were not part of the 2001 recommendations. It has made substantial changes to its organisation and operations to implement these changes. Many of the changes are still proceeding. The Service has addressed a key finding of the 2001 audit report - that it did not have adequate, relevant or credible management data for decision making. The Service now has five years of operational data from the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #167 - released 6 June 2007

We consider that students and teachers have significantly better access to computers than was the case when we did our 2000 audit. Teachers and students are also increasingly using computers for teaching and learning. The Department of Education and Training has been proactive in advancing Information Communication Technology (ICT) into schools. However we found that teachers and students are less likely to use computers if there are problems with infrastructure or technical support.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #166 - released 9 May 2007

Many projects, both Partnership Against Homelessness and by individual agencies, have shown good results or led to improvements. One example is helping mental health patients maintain stable housing. Another is providing street outreach services to homeless people in inner Sydney. Despite these efforts, we were unable to determine how well the government is responding to homelessness statewide. This is because there are no statewide performance measures or targets on homelessness. Also there is limited benchmarking, and no formal means of spreading information on homelessness initiatives and projects.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #165 - released 2 May 2007

The Department of Juvenile Justice and the NSW Police Force generally work together and with other agencies to identify and address the needs of young offenders. We found that this is done particularly well for young offenders who end up in detention and under community supervision. Both the Department of Juvenile Justice and the NSW Police Force have put some practices in place to identify and address the needs of young offenders diverted from the Children’s Court. However, we found that they are not doing this systematically.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #164 - released 28 March 2007

The Audit Office is of the opinion that the RTA is taking positive steps in planning for road maintenance and in many instances follows better practice. There are, however, some important improvements which need to be implemented in order to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of that function.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #69 - released 1 December 1999