A performance audit of the Commission charged with protecting the integrity of Commonwealth’s law enforcement agencies has been unable to draw conclusions due to a lack of information.
In his report Operational Efficiency of the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI), Auditor-General, Grant Hehir said that due to that absence of information the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) was unable to conclude whether the ACLEI was operating efficiently or not.
He said the audit attempted to find out if ACLEI had established appropriate arrangements to assess its efficient use of resources and how well its efficiency compared with comparable entities and its own previous performance.
“As ACLEI has not measured, benchmarked or reported on its efficiency in detecting, investigating and preventing corrupt conduct, the ANAO has not been able to conclude whether ACLEI has been operating efficiently,” Mr Hehir said.
“ACLEI does not assess its operational efficiency against its own past performance or other organisations.
He said the ANAO’s analysis indicated that the efficiency of ACLEI’s investigation activities may have deteriorated over time.
“The efficiency of ACLEI’s investigation activities requires particular improvement.
“ACLEI has not established appropriate arrangements to enable an assessment of its operational efficiency.”
The Auditor-General made three recommendations related to the Agency developing performance measures, introducing review measures and benchmarking its operational efficiency against comparable organisations.
ACLEI agreed to the recommendations.
Mr Hehir also identified a number of ‘Key learnings’ for APS entities from the audit and included them in his report.
His 46-page audit report can be accessed at this PS News link and the audit team was Stephen Cull and Brian Boyd with assistance from Callida Consulting.
