A follow-up audit of an investigation into the effectiveness of the Department of Education and Training’s administration of school funding in 2017-18 has found the Department to be making progress.
However, some transparency requirements are yet to be completed.
In his report, Monitoring the Impact of Government School Funding — Follow-up, Auditor-General, Grant Hehir said the earlier audit found the Department did not have a sufficient level of assurance that Government funding had been used in accordance with the legislative framework.
Mr Hehir said the Department was making material progress in improving its effectiveness in administering school funding and had largely implemented the recommendations made in the earlier audit.
“A robust risk-based approach to monitoring compliance with school funding legislated requirements is in place, but transparency requirements are not yet effectively supported,” Mr Hehir said.
He said the Department had not yet effectively supported the transparency of Australian Government funding allocation and did not analyse school funding allocation data to ensure funding was distributed in accordance with need.
“Monitoring of progress against reform directions and ongoing policy requirements is largely effective, however there are limitations in the Department’s ability to measure the impact of school funding on educational outcomes,” Mr Hehir said.
“Some of the reform directions, including those relating to teaching quality, do not have performance measures and the Department’s use of school data is still limited.”
The Auditor-General’s audit report can be found online at this PS News link and a 64-page printed version can be accessed at this link.
The audit team was Isabelle Favre, Hugh Balgarnie, Elizabeth Robinson, Song Khor and Deborah Jackson.
