APS capability concerns during ANAO roundtables

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Capability was a chief issue raised by departments during a series of roundtables discussing the ANAO’s 2021-22 Annual Performance Statements.

Held by the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (JCPAA), the roundtables included representatives from the ANAO, Finance, and several government departments.

With regards to the capability issue, Treasury’s chief operating officer Angela Barrett said there was a difference between financial audits and performance audits.

“In my view, you don’t go to university, study accounting and grow up through a professional field and have that capability building,” Barrett said.

“I have an exceptional team – and I am lucky to have them – but finding people and building that capability across the Commonwealth, I do think, is difficult, and I think it’s a challenge.

“And so when you talk about machinery of government changes, I do agree with AGD [the Attorney General’s Department] that actually until we have maturity and capability [across] the Commonwealth, it will be difficult to just plug and play. I think we’re a long way off maturing that capability.”

Machinery of government changes was mentioned a few times, with DEWR, Education, DAFF and DCCEEW all appearing at the roundtables last Friday. Each one of those departments was subject to the machinery of government changes last year.

In response to the question of capability, auditor-general Grant Hehir said it was important to separate capability between priorities and skills.

“Most of the skills that you talk about with performance monitoring are pretty standard, program-management type skills that you would expect people to have if you’re managing programs,” Hehir said.

“There are some specialist things that you might need to draw on about measurement, but they’re not novel.”

Another concern from the departments was the methodology used by the ANAO for its performance audits, with officials saying knowing the methodology the ANAO was using would help prepare for audits and in the name of transparency.

According to Hehir, the ANAO will publish the methodology later this year.

Senator Linda Reynolds mused that in the private sector, there was only one measure of success: being profitable.

“In the absence of that profit-or-perish imperative or that sort of indicator, this comes down to, how do you know that you’re doing a good job?” Reynolds said.

“How do you know that you’re value for money and that you’re delivering what the taxpayers are paying you for?”

Education’s chief operating officer Marcus Markovic said that rather than measuring on one metric like profitability, it is more complex when it comes to government.

“This goes really to the art of selecting the right measures, making sure they’re appropriate, getting somebody independent to look at them and constantly refining and improving them,” Markovic said.

“I think the answer lies in the sum rather than having that single measure.”

The scheduling of performance audits was discussed, with committee chair Julian Hill requesting answers through questions on notice on the timing of audits.

“Granular ideas are very welcome,” Hill added.