The ANAO Workforce Plan 2022-25 outlines how we will attract, develop and retain the capability of our workforce, to ensure we are suitably skilled to deliver on our purpose to the Parliament – now and into the future. This is a summary of the full plan.

The shared content volume of the ANAO Audit Manual applies to all assurance activity performed by the ANAO, including financial statements and performance auditing. The shared volume addresses key matters affecting compliance with the Auditor-General Act 1997 and other aspects of the ANAO’s legislative framework. It sets out the main requirements of the ANAO’s overall system of quality control in accordance with ASQC1 Quality Control for Firms that Perform Audits and Reviews of Financial Reports and Other Financial Information, Other Assurance Engagements and Related Services Engagements.

The audit would examine the effectiveness of systems and processes to evaluate Australian Government programs aimed at First Nations peoples.

Auditor General Report 47 2018–19 Evaluating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Programs found that, five years after the establishment of the Indigenous Advancement Strategy (IAS), the development of an evaluation framework was still in the ‘early stages’. The audit made three recommendations. The May 2019 Order to Establish the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) as an Executive Agency lists ‘to analyse and monitor the effectiveness of programs and services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, including programs and services delivered by bodies other than the Agency’ as one of NIAA’s key responsibilities.

The Productivity Commission published the Indigenous Evaluation Strategy in October 2020. Section 24 of the Productivity Commission Act 1998 (PC Act) requires at least one commissioner to have extensive skills and experience in dealing with policies and programs that have an impact on Indigenous persons. A new Indigenous Policy Evaluation Commissioner was appointed to the Productivity Commission on 25 June 2024.

The Auditor-General responded on 17 January 2017 to correspondence from the Hon. Linda Burney MP on 5 January 2017 requesting that the Auditor-General conduct an audit of the Centrelink debt recovery and welfare integrity programs.

The purpose of the Australian National Audit Office is to support accountability and transparency in the Australian Government sector through independent reporting to the Parliament, and thereby contribute to improved public sector performance.

The ANAO adopts a range of communication practices to strengthen the impact of its work and facilitate the sharing of audit insights. Communication practices had included the publication of better practice guides on aspects of Commonwealth administration, for the information of Australian Government entities.

The independent Review of Whole-of-Government Internal Regulation recommended that the ANAO take the opportunity to review whether there is a continuing need to develop and maintain separate guidance, where regulators and policy owners have developed or are developing policy guidance material. The ANAO consulted the Australian Parliament and public sector entities, including audit committees within these entities, about the future of better practice guides. The feedback received was that where another entity has produced, or will produce, a similar resource and has committed to continue to do so, the ANAO could add more value by monitoring the effectiveness of this resource. On this basis, the ANAO decided to discontinue and cease distribution of a range of better practice guides from 1 July 2017. Refer to our previously published message from July 2017 (below) for more information about the guides that were removed at this time.

It was also determined in July 2017 that the ANAO would retain three guides and withdraw three guides following a transition period:

Since July 2017, the ANAO has continued to work with policy owners as they have developed or revised their guidance material in relation to the six remaining guides.

In April 2018 we sought feedback from the accountable authorities of policy-owning entities on our intention to withdraw the six remaining guides. All relevant entities supported the removal of the guides, although the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet raised that the outcome of the work being conducted by the APS Reform Committee may lead to new guidance which supersedes the Successful Implementation of Policy Initiatives guide.

In May 2018 the Auditor-General wrote to the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (JCPAA) seeking the Committee’s feedback on the proposal to withdraw the remaining better practice guides. The Committee advised:

the JCPAA has no overall objection to the withdrawal of the Better Practice Guides from the ANAO website. We note the ANAO’s commitment to continue to monitor the effectiveness of the replacement guidance material, as appropriate, under its audit program. We further appreciate that the ANAO’s Audit Insights now provide information on audit issues and examples of good practice, as identified through financial statement and performance audit work, by way of shared learnings for all Commonwealth entities.

Considering the feedback from the JCPAA and policy-owning entities’ support, the remaining guides have now been removed from the ANAO website:

• Successful Implementation of Policy Initiatives
• Public Sector Audit Committees
• Public Sector Governance
• Public Sector Financial Statements
• Developing and Managing Contracts
• Administering Regulation

In 2017-18 the ANAO developed audit insights, a new product which identifies and discusses common recurring issues, shortcomings and good practice examples, identified through our financial statement and performance audit work. The objective of audit insights is consistent with the objective of better practice guides: improved public sector administration.

The ANAO will continue to monitor the effectiveness of guidance material, as appropriate, under our audit program.

If you require access to the withdrawn better practice guides listed above, you can find them through the National Library of Australia’s Australian Government Web Archive.

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 objective of the audit was to assess whether the Australian Taxation Office has effective arrangements in place to support the adoption of Artificial Intelligence.

The audit will assess the effectiveness of the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’s (Health) and Services Australia’s approach to health provider compliance, including their response to the 2023 Independent Review of Medicare Integrity and Compliance (the Philip Review). The audit will also examine the Professional Services Review Scheme, which investigates referred cases of possible inappropriate practice in relation to the Medicare Benefits Schedule, Child Dental Benefits Schedule (CDBS) and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

Health has policy responsibility for Medicare, the CDBS and the PBS. Through its Health Benefit Compliance Program, Health aims to support the integrity of health benefit claims through prevention, early identification and treatment of incorrect claiming, inappropriate practice and fraud. Auditor-General Report No. 17 2020–21 Managing Health Provider Compliance found that Health’s approach to health provider compliance was partially effective, due in part to a lack of risk-based compliance planning and monitoring of compliance outcomes. The Philip Review made a number of recommendations to Health and Services Australia to strengthen the integrity of the Medicare system and its health provider compliance mechanisms. In the 2023–24 Federal Budget, Health received $29.8 million to establish a taskforce to respond to the Philip Review’s recommendations. In the 2024–25 Budget, Health received $18.1 million over four years to extend and expand the government’s response to the Philip Review.

This second audit report relating to SMSFs examines the effectiveness of the Tax Office's approach to managing SMSF compliance risks. Specifically the ANAO examined the processes the Tax Office uses to:

• identify the risks relevant to SMSFs not complying with their obligations under the SISA, including members accessing their superannuation early;
• mitigate SMSF compliance risks; and
• administer fund wind-ups.