Australian National Audit Office (ANAO)

The audit would assess whether the Australian Government’s purchase of state government shares of Snowy Hydro Limited provided value for money with public resources.

In March 2018, the Australian Government announced that it would purchase New South Wales and Victoria’s combined shareholding of Snowy Hydro Limited (87 per cent). The purchase of Snowy Hydro Limited is a precursor to the planned implementation of Snowy Hydro 2.0, the expansion of the Snowy Mountains Scheme to facilitate pumped hydro for electricity generation.

The audit would include an assessment of the Department of Finance and the Treasury’s assurance on whether value for money was achieved in the purchase.

This audit would examine the effectiveness and efficiency of the design and implementation of the Streamlining Government Grants Administration (SGGA) Program.

Announced in 2015–16 Budget as part of the Digital Transformation Agenda, the Department of Finance led the SGGA Program initiative as part of the Government’s vision for a smaller, smarter, and more productive and sustainable public sector. Two grants hubs have been established: the Business Grants Hub in the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science; and the Community Grants Hub in the Department of Social Services. Finance also implemented GrantConnect, the Australian Government’s whole-of-government grant information system.

The SGGA Program is expected to reduce red tape for grant applicants and recipients and result in administrative efficiencies for government. This audit would examine the Department of Finance’s design and implementation of the SGGA Program to achieve efficiency savings, provide transparency about grant processes and outcomes, and facilitate sufficient assurance over administrative processes for participating entities.

This audit would examine the Department of Communications and the Arts and NBN Co Limited’s management of the migration of existing fixed-line telephone services to the national broadband network.

As the national broadband network is rolled out, there is an 18-month migration window that starts when NBN Co Limited declares a region ‘ready for service’. During the migration window, all voice, broadband and other services that operate on Telstra’s local access networks are to be migrated to services provided by NBN Co Limited. At the end of the migration window, the network service provider is required to disconnect all services on its local access networks. In 2017, there was an increase in complaints received by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman regarding national broadband network migration issues and connection speeds. This potential audit is one of a series of audits of NBN Co Limited and forms part of a performance audit strategy to be delivered over several years. As the migration process is substantial in scale and timeframes, the exact scope of this audit would be clarified closer to the point of commencement.

NBN Co Limited is a government business enterprise. The ANAO can conduct performance audits of government business enterprises where requested by the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit.