Current Guides

Since 1994, the ANAO has published a Better Practice Guide on the administration of grants to encourage better administrative outcomes. This latest version of the Guide has been prepared to reflect the enhanced legislative and policy framework for grants administration that came into full effect on 1 July 2009. The new framework includes a number of mandatory requirements, as well as outlining, in the Commonwealth Grant Guidelines (CGGs), various better practice principles.

This revised Better Practice Guide has been designed to complement the CGGs by providing a companion reference point that will assist decision-makers and administering agencies to implement the new policy requirements and related guidance, which have a particular focus on decision-making processes for the awarding of grants.

The successful delivery of government programs requires the projects that underpin their implementation to be well-managed from the point of inception through to full implementation.

This Guide provides an executive perspective on the planning and approval stage of projects for Australian Government entities. The Guide focuses on the most common types of projects – those aimed at program delivery, and on internal business operations. The Guide:

• discusses the role of executives in project planning and approval and typical elements of the project lifecycle;
• describes better practices in the overall arrangements of an entity for the planning and approval of projects, including aspects of strategic planning, people and culture, and governance;
• describes better practices for senior executives in the planning and approval of individual projects, including clarifying the project concept, preparing a business case and project approval; and.
• provides an overview of implementation issues for projects.

Download Word version of checklists

To view tips to save time when using this PDF, such as convenient search, navigation, and display features, click HERE.

Innovation in a public sector context has been defined as the ‘creation and implementation of new processes, products, services and methods of delivery which result in significant improvements in the efficiency, effectiveness or quality of outcomes’. In short, innovation is the application of new ideas to produce better outcomes.

Supplements to this Better Practice Guide

• A Review of the Literature
• Detailed Case Study Material From Agencies

To download the Better Practice Guide please click on the link below

This guide is intended to assist Australian Government entities to strengthen security and controls within SAP for all version up to ECC 6.0. It will be a useful guide to assist entities that are looking to:
• identify and assess business impacts that may arise as a result of control weaknesses;
• increase awareness of risks to security and control within SAP;
• strengthen system security controls and ensure that user access to key transaction codes and authorisation objects are appropriately restricted and segregated;
• implement better practice procedures to improve delivery of financial processes.

This guide covers those modules of SAP that are most likely to be implemented by public sector entities. They are: Procurement and Payables; General Ledger; Human Resources; Basis; Controlling; Project System; and Asset Accounting. In addition, the guide contains several supplementary feature articles on emerging topic areas, including: implementing effective access control to the SAP Governance, Risk and Compliance module; and issues for consideration when implementing financial shared services or grants management.

The attached ZIP file contains the templates and checklists from Part Four of the Preparation of Financial Statements by Public Sector Entities Better Practice Guide which can be downloaded below.

The ANAO has supplied these files for people to use and modify to suit their individual circumstances.

The documents will be downloaded in a Zip file format.

Business continuity management is an essential component of good public sector governance. It is part of an entity’s overall approach to effective risk management, and should be closely aligned to the entity’s incident management, emergency response management and IT disaster recovery. Successful business continuity management requires a commitment from the executive to raising awareness and implementing sound approaches to build resilience.

This Guide has been produced following consultation with Australian Government and private sector entities. The Guide provides a refreshed version of a previous ANAO Guide. The new version is presented in a more user-friendly format, and includes contemporary practical advice, case studies and references as well as exploring issues within the business continuity environment that have arisen since the previous ANAO publication.

The Guide will be a useful reference document for boards, chief executives and senior management in public sector entities.

The purpose of this Better Practice Guide is to assist agency officers in managing their parliamentary workflow activities. This edition reviews and updates the contents of the previous Guide, released in 2003. It includes new material, for example:

• areas of better practice that have been introduced by agencies since 2003;
• contemporary issues, such as an increased use of technology in managing parliamentary workflow, that are impacting on the operations of parliamentary workflow units; and
• updated central guidance that is appropriate to the conduct of parliamentary workflow activities.

It covers a range of strategic and operational tasks involved in managing parliamentary workflow, for example establishing processes to ensure effective senior oversight and leadership of this work and preparing ministerial speeches, briefings and media releases.

In addition to the downloadable PDF document, this is the first better practice guide to also be available in HTML format.