A report on the results of financial audits of NSW universities for the year ended 31 December 2018 has been released by Acting Auditor-General, Ian Goodwin.
All 10 NSW universities received unqualified audit opinions.
Mr Goodwin announced that the audits found that revenue from overseas students continued to grow faster than that from domestic students, contributing to just over 60 per cent of all NSW universities’ student revenues.
In contrast, he said, Government grants as a proportion of the total income of NSW universities continued to decrease.
“The increasing dependency of some universities on revenue from students from a single country of origin makes them more susceptible to changes in the economic and/or political environment,” the audit report found.
It made recommendations to the universities aimed at strengthening controls over cyber security and validating published performance information.
It also recommended NSW universities strengthen their oversight of their overseas controlled entities’ legal and policy compliance functions.
Mr Goodwin said the report found total research income for the universities was $1.1 billion in 2017.
“The average annual operating expenditure per equivalent full-time student load increased to $32,737 in 2018, an increase of 6.5 per cent since 2017,” he said.
“This was mostly driven by higher employee-related expenses.”
Mr Goodwin said the audits also identified 99 internal control deficiencies in 2018 (83 in 2017) with gaps in information technology controls comprising the majority of the deficiencies.
“Three universities are still developing their strategy to safeguard against cyber security risks. Three universities have not established formal policies to manage data breaches,” Mr Goodwin said.
The report also found the universities’ enrolments increased the most in IT, engineering and related technologies, and society and culture courses, while five universities met the target enrolment rate for students from low socio-economic status backgrounds.
The Acting Auditor-General’s 41-page report can be accessed at this PS News link.
