An audit of the implementation of corporate plans by Departments and Agencies in the Australian Public Service has found progress to be less than expected.
In his report, Corporate Planning in the Australian Public Sector 2017–18, Auditor-General, Grant Hehir found that despite the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA Act) requiring Agencies to position their corporate plan as their primary planning document, two of the four Agencies selected for audit had failed to do so.
“Given this is the third year that entities have been required to produce corporate plans under the PGPA Act …. greater progress in implementation than what this audit indicates could have been expected,” Mr Hehir said.
The audit team reviewed records and interviewed staff at the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC); the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO); the Department of the Treasury, and the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman.
Mr Hehir said Agencies were required to publish a corporate plan on their websites at least once in each reporting period.
“Corporate plans are intended to be the primary planning documents of Commonwealth entities and companies and represent the beginning of a performance cycle,” Mr Hehir said.
He found that AUSTRAC and the Ombudsman had positioned their corporate plan as their primary planning documents but Treasury and CSIRO had not done so.
“Each of the selected entities has developed processes to support the development of the corporate plan and to monitor achievement against the plan,” Mr Hehir said.
However, only CSIRO met all of the minimum requirements of the PGPA Rule.
He said there was scope for improvement in a range of areas and the entities should have moved beyond simple compliance with the minimum requirements.
“They should also have embedded the corporate plan as the entity’s primary planning document, and progressed the development of meaningful risk management summaries and performance indicators,” Mr Hehir said.
The Auditor-General’s 70-page report can be accessed at this PS News link and the audit team was Grace Guilfoyle, Jacqueline Hedditch, Nikol Jepson and Michelle Page.
