The ANAO gifts and benefits policy recommends that ANAO employees do not accept any gifts or benefits in their role as an employee of the ANAO. Employees are required to report any offered gift or benefit (whether accepted or refused) within 10 business days of the offer being made, through an internal gifts and benefits register. The data collected through the internal register is reported to the ANAO’s Executive Board of Management, and a subset of the data is reported publicly here.

This annual report documents the performance of the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) in the financial year ended 30 June 2020. The report addresses all applicable obligations under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013; the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Rule 2014; the Auditor-General Act 1997; the performance measures set out in the outcome and programs framework in the ANAO's Portfolio Budget Statements 2019–20 and the ANAO Corporate Plan 2019–20; and annual reporting requirements set out in other relevant legislation.

This annual report documents the performance of the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) in the financial year ended on 30 June 2019. The report addresses all applicable obligations under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013; the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Rule 2014; the Auditor-General Act 1997; the performance measures set out in the outcome and programs framework in the ANAO’s Portfolio Budget Statements 2018–19 and the ANAO Corporate Plan 2018–19, and annual reporting requirements set out in other relevant legislation.

The audit objective is to assess the effectiveness of the Department of Agriculture’s administration of the Imported Food Inspection Scheme.

The objective of the audit was to assess whether the Department of Defence’s Projects of Concern regime is effective in managing the recovery of underperforming projects.

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has zero tolerance for fraud and corruption. This means the ANAO will take all reasonable steps necessary to prevent, detect and respond to fraud and corruption. This strategy defines the ANAO’s principles of effective fraud and corruption control, key roles and responsibilities and how the ANAO expects to mitigate and manage risks. The strategy informs staff how they can report fraud and corruption.

The Auditor-General responded on 29 October 2019 to correspondence from the Hon Joel Fitzgibbon MP dated 1 October 2019, requesting that the Auditor-General conduct an examination of Federal Government drought funding measures. The Auditor-General provided a follow-up response to the Hon Joel Fitzgibbon MP on 24 July 2020.

Given the significant expenditure associated with the Super Seasprites, and the problems that the Project had encountered over some time, the ANAO had commenced this performance audit prior to the Government's decision to cancel the Project. The focus of the audit was on Defence's and DMO's administration of the Project. In light of the Government's decision to cancel the Project, the objective of the audit was revised to place greater emphasis on those issues that resulted in the failure of the Project to provide the required capability, and highlighting project management lessons for major Defence acquisitions going forward.Accordingly the audit objective was to:

• identify those factors that contributed to the on-going poor performance of the Project;
• outline measures taken by Defence and DMO in seeking to overcome issues encountered by the Project, and key lessons arising from this project for the benefit of major acquisitions projects generally; and
• determine the capability and cost implications of a project that failed to deliver to expectations.

The audit objective was to assess the effectiveness of the administration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation targets in intergovernmental funding agreements in achieving policy objectives.

This report is the first of two reports each year and focuses on the results of the interim audits, including an assessment of entities’ key internal controls, supporting the 2022–23 financial statements audits. This report examines 27 entities, including all departments of state and a number of major Australian government entities. The majority of entities included in the report are selected on the basis of their contribution to the income, expenses, assets and liabilities of the 2021–22 Consolidated Financial Statements.