The independent Review of Whole-of-Government Internal Regulation, known as the ‘Belcher Red Tape Review’, made a recommendation in relation to the ANAO’s better practice guides that ‘the ANAO take the opportunity, where regulators and policy owners have developed or are developing policy guidance material, to review whether there is a continuing need for it to develop, release and maintain its own separate guidance’. The ANAO has considered the Belcher review and the potential for duplication where the regulator has provided guidance on particular subject areas and consulted widely with key stakeholders over the past year about the future of our better practice guides. We consulted with the Australian Parliament and public sector entities, including audit committees within these entities, and then considered the feedback received.

The broadly consistent feedback was that where another entity has, or will be, producing a similar resource and has committed to continue to do so, the ANAO could add more value by monitoring the effectiveness of this resource (and potentially partnering with the entity in its production), whilst ceasing to produce its own resource. On this basis, the ANAO has decided to discontinue and cease distributing a range of better practice guides, and continue to produce only a small number of guides in partnership  with policy owners, where possible.

The following better practice guides will be removed from the ANAO website by 1 July 2017:

1. Implementing Better Practice Grants Administration
2. Fraud Control in Australian Government Entities
3. Public Sector Internal Audit
4. Human Resource Management Information Systems
5. Public Sector Environmental Management
6. Planning and Approving Projects—an Executive Perspective
7. Strategic and Operational Management of Assets by Public Sector Entities
8. Innovation in the Public Sector
9. Business Continuity Management
10. Developing and Managing Internal Budgets
11. SAP ECC 6.0: Security and Control