The objectives for the audit were to assess the:

• economy, administrative effectiveness, and accountability of DVA's management of the purchase of hospital services from State and Territory governments; and
• strategies adopted by DVA to manage change associated with its purchase of hospital care services from State and Territory governments.

The twin aims were to provide assurance to stakeholders and to identify any area in which improvements could be made to achieve better results.

The objectives of the audit were to:

• evaluate the extent to which the Government's sale objectives were achieved, with a focus on those objectives relating to the optimisation of sale proceeds and minimisation of risk to the Commonwealth;
• examine the effectiveness of the management of the sale process to ensure the Commonwealth received fair value; and
• within the context of broader Commonwealth debt management considerations, assess the application of the sale proceeds to repaying Commonwealth debt and the extent to which public debt interest payments may be reduced.

Taxation rulings are a key mechanism used by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to disseminate the Commissioner of Taxation's interpretative advice on Australian taxation law. The objective of the audit was to:

report to Parliament on the operation of the ATO's administration of taxation rulings (public, private and oral rulings); and where appropriate, make recommendations for improvements, having regard to considerations of: efficiency and effectiveness of the ATO's administration of the rulings system, particularly in relation to the achievement of the objectives set by Parliament for the rulings system; the ATO's systems' capacity to deliver consistency and fairness for taxpayers; and good corporate governance, including the control framework.

The objective of the performance audit was to assess the administrative effectiveness of DIMA's business entry program against the background of the Business and Temporary Entry program objective, with particular regard to whether:

• the existing performance management mechanisms and compliance monitoring strategies support the achievement of program outcomes and outputs;
• the quality of decision-making;
• business processes facilitate prompt visa decision-making consistent with program objectives; and
• decision-making support mechanisms promote robust and timely decision-making.

The purpose of the audit was to examine how efficiently and effectively the ATO managed its collection of outstanding tax debt. A framework for analysing the ATO's approach to collecting outstanding debt was established by the ANAO. This framework reflected five key criteria in the collection process as they apply to managing outstanding debt, namely:

• initiatives to promote timely payment;
• identification of outstanding debt;
• setting priorities for collecting outstanding debt;
• management of collection practices; and
• collection results.

The objectives of the audit were to: assess compliance with the Stevedoring Levy (Collection) Act 1998 and Stevedoring Levy (Imposition) Act 1998 and other relevant legislation; assess the effectiveness of the administrative and financial controls regarding the collection of the Stevedoring Levy by DoTRS and the provision of redundancy payments to eligible employees of stevedoring companies and the management of the funding of those payments by way of borrowings by MIFCo; and review the administrative efficiency of the redundancy payment and Stevedoring Levy collection aspects of the waterfront redundancy scheme.

Closing the books processes sometimes referred to as 'month-end or year-end processing' are those processes undertaken by organisations in order to generate periodic financial information. This audit focused on the monthly closing the books processes undertaken at six of the material Commonwealth organisations, in order to provide some generic conclusions on the operation and effectiveness of these periodic processes in the Commonwealth and to identify opportunities for improvement.

The audit examined the management of computer software assets at four Commonwealth bodies. It focused on the capitalisation of software for the purposes of annual financial reporting. The specific objectives were to: determine whether the selected bodies had established effective internal control frameworks for the capitalisation of externally acquired and internally developed software; and assess whether software costs were capitalised in accordance with organisational policy, accounting standards and relevant legislation.

The objective was to assess the extent to which staff reductions have been managed in a sound strategic and cost-effective manner consistent with the Government's guidelines and the ANAO's 1996 better practice guide Managing APS Staff Reductions. The audit focussed on 3 agencies - the Australian Taxation Office, the former Department of Primary Industry and Energy, and the former Department of Transport and Regional Development. The ANAO found that the majority of staff reductions were achieved through retrenchment rather than natural attrition; and that decisions on the number of retrenchments were not always supported by an assessment of the impact of the reductions on the agencies' abilities to conduct their business.

The objectives of the audit were to assist the Department in the timely identification of any deficiencies in the evaluation of responses from suppliers and options for addressing the deficiencies. The objectives were to:

• test the Department's adherence to Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines for open and effective competition and to legislative and other Government specified requirements; and
• provide a report to the Parliament, the Government and other interested parties on the probity of the evaluation process.

The scope of the audit was restricted to considering the processes employed by the Department in the selection of hearing devices for use under the voucher scheme.