The Audit reviewed the Commercial Support Program (CSP) within the Department of Defence. The CSP was introduced in 1991 following a review of the report, The Defence Force and the Community. Its objective is to achieve best value for money in the acquisition of support services for the Department of Defence and to give the private sector an opportunity to participate in the provision of those support services. The objective of this audit was to assess whether CSP was meeting its objectives and to identify any areas where it may be possible to improve the timeliness, and therefore cost-effectiveness, with which CSP is implemented and the quality of the process itself to produce better outcomes.

The audit reviewed the use and operation of performance information in service level agreements between Centrelink and three agencies; the Department of Social Security, the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs and the Department of Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business. The objective of the audit was to establish whether the performance assessment framework specified in the agreements enabled the adequate assessment of achievements under purchaser/provider arrangements entered into by DSS, DEETYA and Centrelink.

The objective of the audit was to examine the effectiveness of the Department of Health and Ageing's administration of the Round the Clock Medicare: Investing in After Hours General Practice Services program.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) established a task force in 1996 to develop a greater understanding of the factors involved and to devise a coordinated approach in dealing with the cash economy. The objective of the performance audit was to report to Parliament on the ATO's progress in addressing the cash economy, including its monitoring and reporting of outcomes. The audit focused on the ATO's implementation of its Cash Economy Task Force recommendations in the light of the tax reform that has taken place over the last two years.

The objective of this report is to provide the Auditor-General’s independent assurance over the status of the selected major projects. The status of the selected major projects is reported in the Statement by the Secretary of Defence and the Project Data Summary Sheets (PDSSs) prepared by Defence. Assurance from the ANAO’s review is conveyed in the Independent Assurance Report by the Auditor-General.

Australian Industry Involvement Program. Department of Defence The audit examined the management by Defence of its Australian Industry Involvement (AII) Program. AII is the major program through which Defence gives effect to government policy on Australian industry. The objective of the audit was to assess the extent to which the AII Program has achieved its two policy objectives, which are to :

• develop and sustain strategically important capabilities in Australian industry to support Australian Defence Force operations and Defence capability development; and
• maximise Australian industry involvement in Defence's procurement of goods and services, consistent with the government procurement policy objective of achieving best value for money to the Commonwealth.

The objective of the audit was to assess the effectiveness of the delivery of the first and second funding rounds of the Filling the Research Gap program by the Department of Agriculture.

The objective of this audit was to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the Commonwealth's management of the Great Barrier Reef as implemented by the Authority. This audit was undertaken because of the environmental significance of the Great Barrier Reef Region; its growing economic importance; recent changes to the Authority's budget arrangements; and because the Authority had not been subject to a performance audit since its establishment approximately 20 years ago.

Mr P.J. Barrett (AM) - Auditor-General for Australia, presented at the InfoHRM Conference, Gold Coast

The audit objective was to examine whether the selected entities have implemented a selection of agreed parliamentary committee and Auditor-General recommendations.

Mr P.J. Barrett (AM) - Auditor-General for Australia, presented at the Attorney-General's Luncheon

The objective of the audit was to report to Parliament on the economy, efficiency and administrative effectiveness of the risk management process in the Small Business Income business line. It follows Audit Report No.37 1996-97 and entitled Risk Management - Australian Taxation Office. That audit focused on broad strategic issues relevant to risk management in the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) as a whole. This audit follows the issues identified in that report into the day-to-day management of the Small Business Income as an example of how risk management operates in a significant element of the ATO.

Mr Ian McPhee - Deputy Auditor-General, presented at the Best Practice Financial Management Seminar, Canberra

The audit reviewed the retention of military personnel that are managed by the Australian Defence Force which comprises the three Services. The objective of the audit was to review the management of personnel retention within the ADF with a view to evaluating the measures Defence has in place to monitor and control the flow of trained personnel from the Services

The audit was undertaken following advice from the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (JCPAA) to the Auditor-General that assurance that ABC programming adequately reflects the ABC's Charter was an audit priority of Parliament. The objective of the audit is to provide Parliament with this assurance. The focus of the audit was on the governance arrangements of the ABC Board and management that enable the ABC to demonstrate the extent to which it is achieving its' Charter obligations, and other related statutory requirements, efficiently and effectively. The scope of the audit was as follows:

• Review the ABC's corporate governance framework against better practice models. The ANAO had regard to the ABC's unique role as a national public broadcaster established as a budget funded Commonwealth statutory authority subject to the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act 1997.
• Examine the ABC Board's approach to the interpretation of the Charter requirements of the ABC and the setting of strategic directions, and management's administrative arrangements for implementing the strategic directions established by the Board.
• Examine the ABC's performance information framework, the development, documentation and use of performance measures in relation to targets and/or objectives, the monitoring and reporting of performance and its' inter-relationship with the corporate planning and budgetary processes, particularly in relation to the strategic directions set by the Board.

The audit did not examine the overall management of the ABC. In keeping with the audit scope, the audit examined ways in which the ABC aligns its' strategic directions with its' Charter requirements for programs broadcast on radio, television and on-line and assures itself, and Parliament, about the achievement of its' Charter obligations. Further, the audit did not examine the operations of ABC Enterprises or symphony orchestras that operate as ABC-owned subsidiary companies.

The audit reviewed the management of the first round of Job Network contracts, which focused on Job Matching, Job Search Training and Intensive Assistance. The objective of the audit was to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the Department of Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business's management of the first round of employment services contracts. A key part of this examination was to assess the Department's level of confidence that the program was meeting government objectives based on performance and management information.

Mr P.J. Barrett (AM) - Auditor-General for Australia, presented at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, Sydney, 30 Sept

The objective of the audit was to examine the effectiveness of CSP’s feedback management system. CSP’s performance was assessed against the following criteria:

• CSP has appropriate channels to collect customer feedback;
• CSP effectively manages and resolves complaints; and
• CSP accurately reports on customer feedback, and analyses the information to improve aspects of child support administration.

Mr P.J. Barrett (AM) - Auditor-General for Australia, presented to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India

The audit objective was to assess the effectiveness of AusAID’s management of infrastructure aid to Indonesia, with a particular focus on the Eastern Indonesia National Roads Improvement Project and the Indonesia Infrastructure Initiative.

The objective of this audit was to assess the effectiveness of Defence’s administration of allowances and entitlements paid to its Australian Public Service (APS) employees.

Mr P.J. Barrett (AM) - Auditor-General for Australia, presented at the IPAA Conference, Canberra

The objective of the audit was to examine the effectiveness of the Department of Human Services’ management of Medicare customer data and the integrity of this data.

Mr P.J. Barrett (AM) - Auditor-General for Australia, presented to the Lunchtime Seminar Series for Senior Officers, Sydney, NSW

The objective of this performance audit was to assess the effectiveness and consistency of risk management processes undertaken by the Australian Taxation Office in administering individual taxpayer refunds.

The objective of the audit was to assess the effectiveness of DIT’s and Centrelink’s¹ administration of TFES.

^[1] From 1 July 2011, Centrelink became a master program within DHS.

The objective of the audit was to assess the ATO's administration of the LMR. Specifically, the audit sought to: examine and report on aspects of LMR governance; assess the systems, processes and controls used by the ATO to capture and process LMR data reported by providers; examine the mechanisms and strategies the ATO uses to gain assurance that providers are complying with LMR legislation; and assess the mechanisms and strategies the ATO uses to promote awareness of, and enable access to, the LMR.

The objectives of the audit were to examine and evaluate the efficiency, economy and administrative effectiveness of the non-judicial activities of the Family Court of Australia. A major aim of the audit was to identify administrative better practices that could be promulgated throughout the Court. The criteria for the audit address the following issues: corporate planning; performance measurement; organisational structure; human resource management; human resource development; management information and reporting systems; and operational processes and procedures.

The primary objective of the audit was to assess the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of DoTRD's implementation of Annex 17 in the Australian aviation environment. The ANAO concluded that DoTRD has established a regulatory regime which ensures Australia's compliance with the standards embodied in Annex 17. However, there are areas where Australia's aviation security regime can be strengthened even further including; developing a more robust approach to risk management, developing a longer-term perspective to DoTRD's planning structure, development of proactive alliances with aviation regulators in neighbouring countries in the Asia-Pacific region, further improvement of the airport audit process, development and implementation of an evaluation strategy, development of a formal transparent approach to enforcement.

Mr P.J. Barrett (AM) - Auditor-General for Australia, presented at the Third ACAG Conference, Canberra