Following the federal election in May, the 48th Parliament of Australia was declared open on 22 July. As outlined in our latest corporate plan (more on that below), a key focus for the ANAO in 2025–26 is supporting the new parliament, particularly during its formation. The Parliament is our primary stakeholder, and transitions between parliaments provide us with an opportunity to reinforce the importance of transparency, accountability and public sector performance and provide new and returning parliamentarians with timely, relevant and accessible information about our work.

The Auditor-General and I have held briefings with new ministers and senators, and we are looking forward to supporting the re-establishment of the Parliament’s oversight and scrutiny functions, including the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (JCPAA). The JCPAA membership is now on its website: the committee has elected Mr Josh Burns MP as Chair and Senator Matt O’Sullivan as Deputy Chair.

We published our corporate plan for 2025–26 in July. This is our primary planning document and outlines how we intend to deliver against our purpose over the next four years. It includes our strategic priorities, operating context, as well as the performance measures by which we will be held to account.

This year, for the first time, we developed a Strategy on a Page to clearly and succinctly highlight the strategic priorities we intend to pursue. Our three strategic priorities are:

• impact where it matters
• performance through innovation
• inspire and develop our people.

Impact where it matters is about how the ANAO can helpfully engage with the Parliament and public sector to meet our shared purpose of improving the performance of the public sector in delivering outcomes for people in Australia. There are a few approaches we’re taking to drive this priority:

1. Broaden and develop our product mix — we’re going to trial shorter and sharper performance audits and reviews that are conducted across a few months, where the circumstances are appropriate. With a typical performance audit running for 10 to 12 months, these tighter scope performance audits will have a goal of producing reports more quickly for timely feedback (while maintaining appropriate quality of course).
2. Continue development of our insights products — we want to make our insights products as practical and useful for the sector as possible. This includes taking on board your feedback about the kinds of topics you’d like to see us cover, so be sure to reach out with any feedback you have (there is a feedback link available at the top of each Insights page on our website).
3. Lift our engagement activities — explaining our work to ensure it is understood and acted on is just as important as undertaking the work itself. We want to support the value of our work with presentations, workshops and meetings across the public sector.

Performance through innovation is about how the ANAO adapts its work in response to changes in our operating environment. New technologies, complex services, rising community expectations, financial constraints, and shifting geopolitical landscapes all need to be accounted for so that we can ensure our work remains relevant and continues to drive quality, effectiveness and efficiency for both the ANAO and the entities we audit.

We are looking to expand our use of artificial intelligence (AI) with appropriate risk-mitigating safeguards in place. As you would be aware, AI can be an empowering tool across a range of public sector operations — and we will be piloting its use in our own audit work. We’re also working to streamline and integrate processes across different audit activities as part of a methodology review of our performance statements audit and financial statements audit work. We also hope this will reduce some of the burden on your entities as we conduct our audits.

Inspire and develop our people is about supporting and developing our people to grow the technical, leadership, and relationship management skills they need to do effective work. We’re creating opportunities for our people to work across audit streams to develop capability in multiple fields and to further support the streamlining of our audit activities. In addition, we want to expand mobility offerings by providing more secondment and temporary opportunities for our people across both the public and private sectors. If you’re interested in secondment arrangements, please get in touch.

Alongside our corporate plan, we also published our annual audit work program (AAWP) for 2025–26, which outlines our planned audit coverage for the Australian Government sector. Our AAWP outlines where we intend to focus our attention across financial statements, performance and performance statements audit for each portfolio. It’s based on our environmental scan of issues facing the sector and our assessment of risk through previous audit work.

The planned activity coverage of this year’s AAWP includes seven core areas: governance; service delivery; grants administration; procurement; policy development; asset management and sustainment; and regulatory activities. With around 80 potential performance audits included, and our target of 38–42 performance audits to be tabled this financial year, it’s likely that about half of the potential audits listed in the AAWP will commence within the next 12 months. Those that don’t commence may be considered for rollover to the next AAWP.
 

In May, we tabled our interim report on key financial controls of major entities, which presents results from the interim phase of our 2024–25 financial statements audits and includes our assessment of the effectiveness of internal controls in 27 of the largest Australian Government entities.

We continue to find ongoing weakness in IT controls. Sixty-five per cent of all interim findings were related to entities’ IT controls environments, and the majority of those findings were issues with security — including the removal of user access on staff termination, assignment of user access, and the monitoring of privileged user activities. It’s vital that entities take steps to strengthen IT controls and security to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive information, as well as to maintain public trust in systems and data.

We are also concerned about a continued upward trend in moderate and significant audit findings related to compliance and quality assurance frameworks, and legislative breaches.
 

Since the last newsletter, we published three insights products aimed at contributing to improved public sector performance.

Our Audit Lessons product on records management sets out eight lessons learned from recent audit findings on record keeping:

1. promote a culture where records management is valued
2. establish an information governance framework
3. make records available for use and reuse
4. use compliant records management systems
5. ensure that official business communications are appropriately recorded
6. integrate records management into business processes
7. prioritise records management during machinery of government changes
8. ensure records are complete and accurate.

Our latest Audit Practice product outlines the Auditor-General’s role in auditing regulatory activities. This will be useful to entities with regulatory functions and activities that are preparing for one of our performance audits. It covers:

• the ANAO’s approach for regulatory audits — setting the audit objective, criteria, and scope
• evidence gathering and analysis for regulatory audits — testing and analysis of evidence against standards, frameworks and guidance applicable to regulators,
• concluding against the audit objective and reporting — including audit recommendations and the entity’s formal response to the audit report.

Last but not least, our Audit Lessons product on the governance of data shares five lessons based on findings from relevant audits we’ve undertaken over the last five years:

1. value data as though it’s an asset
2. develop an information governance framework and data strategy
3. establish data leadership and define roles and responsibilities
4. document data methodology with data processes mapped end-to-end
5. strengthen assurance over third-party data.

We hosted our financial and performance reporting forum on 27 June 2025 and our audit committee chairs forum on 4 July 2025, where we shared insights on emerging and topical audit issues and requirements affecting Australian Government entities.

We host these forums twice per year, and I’d encourage audit committee chairs, or those charged with financial or performance reporting in their entity, to sign up for the next of these events which I expect will be run again towards the end of 2025. More information is available on our events and seminars page, including how to sign up.

We are always happy to share our insights and lessons to help to improve public administration and to educate entities about the ANAO’s audit processes. If you would like senior ANAO staff to come and speak to your executive board, SES cohort or other groups of staff, please discuss this with your ANAO audit contact or reach out to engagement@anao.gov.au.