A performance audit into how NSW emergency response Agencies addressed public inquiry recommendations has found the Agencies’ governance arrangements to address recommendations suffered from important and consistent gaps.
The audit examined how Fire and Rescue NSW, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NSW Rural Fire Service, NSW State Emergency Service and Resilience NSW had responded to recommendations from 17 public inquiries into their activities over the past 10 years.
In her report, Addressing public inquiry recommendations – Emergency response Agencies, Auditor-General Margaret Crawford said the Agencies didn’t sufficiently verify that they had implemented accepted recommendations as intended.
“This creates a risk that issues with disaster prevention or responses highlighted by public inquiries are not addressed in a complete or timely way and may persist or recur in the future,” Ms Crawford said.
“The audit also found that Agencies did not always nominate milestone dates or priority rankings for accepted recommendations, and so could not demonstrate they were managing or monitoring them effectively,” she said.
Ms Crawford said the Agencies all addressed accepted recommendations with varying degrees of formality and transparency, and that no Agency maintained a central and comprehensive approach, such as a register, to track recommendations.
“None of the Agencies publicly report the status of actions taken to address public inquiry recommendations, limiting accountability and transparency,” the Auditor-General said.
“This echoes the findings of the NSW Bushfire Inquiry and the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements.”
She said both inquiries noted that it was difficult, and sometimes impossible, to determine the implementation status of many recommendations by publicly available information.
Ms Crawford made four recommendations to all five Agencies, including the establishment of an approach to tracking the implementation of accepted recommendations; formally acquitting recommendations based on evidence; publishing consolidated, summary information at least every 12 months on progress made to implement recommendations; and briefing their Audit and Risk Committees on the risk implications of public inquiry findings.
She also made two recommendations specific to Resilience NSW – that it establish and commence operating the central accountability mechanism recommended by the NSW Bushfire Inquiry and that it coordinate with all relevant Agencies to participate in the accountability mechanism.
“The findings and recommendations from this Report have the potential to be applied across the NSW public sector in response to public inquiries related to other areas of Government activity,” Ms Crawford said.
The Auditor-General’s 41-page Report can be accessed at this PS News link.
