An audit of payments made by the Commonwealth to the States and Territories under national partnership agreements has found weaknesses in monitoring and measuring outcomes and publicly reporting results.
In his report Effectiveness of Monitoring and Payment Arrangements under National Partnership Agreements, Auditor-General, Grant Hehir examined 17 of 71 National Partnership Agreements, finding only 30 per cent had been implemented effectively.
“National Partnership Agreements are administered by Commonwealth portfolio Departments that approve payments on assessment that States have met the performance measures and milestones outlined in agreements,” Mr Hehir said.
“The Commonwealth Department of the Treasury is responsible for making payments.”
He said that while strong frameworks had been established for designing the monitoring and payment arrangements, “implementation has been mixed”.
Mr Hehir said his audit examined agreements administered by five Commonwealth Departments: Prime Minister and Cabinet, Treasury, Agriculture and Water Resources, Health, and Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities.
He said the weaknesses had been found particularly in specifying outcome measures, obtaining sufficient evidence to verify all milestones have been met, and publicly reporting the results achieved.
“While listing National Partnership Agreements on the Council on Federal Financial Relations website provides transparency of the intent of the Agreements, there is no public reporting of performance on that website and there is disparate reporting elsewhere,” Mr Hehir said.
“This weakens transparency and accountability about the value of the Agreements.”
He made two recommendations including Treasury facilitate improved public reporting on the outcomes and impact of National Partnership Agreements through the Council on Federal Financial Relations website. Treasury agreed.
The 66-page audit report can be accessed at this PS News link and the audit team was Marian Allen, Luke Josey, Shane Svoboda, Ben Readshaw and Andrew Morris.
