NSW Audit Office - Awareness - Issue 2005 07 - August 2005

The Audit Office Of New South Wales

Informations

• Publié par: Vewyig
• Nombre de lectures: 20
• Langue: English

Extrait

AWARENESSccounting and Auditing Developments ISSUE VII - AUGUST 2005
AUDIT OFFICE 1 AUDIT OFFICE UPDATE
UPDATE
Follow-up Performance Audit Report ACCOUNTING 5
UPDATE
State Rescue Board of NSW:
AUDITING 14
Coordination of Rescue Services UPDATE
INTERNATIONAL 15Background
UPDATE
Nearly 11,000 rescues are carried out each year in New South Wales, the
majority involving motor vehicle accidents. MISCELLANEOUS 16
PUBLICATIONSIn metropolitan areas, we have three emergency services providing
general land rescue: NSW Police, the Ambulance Service and the NSW LEGISLATIVE 17
Fire Brigades. The two volunteer services, the State Emergency Service CHANGES UPDATE
and the Volunteer Rescue Association, generally cover the remainder of
PREMIER’S 18the state.
DEPARTMENT
Rescue arrangements in NSW are different to all other mainland UPDATE
states. Elsewhere, the trend in metropolitan areas has been towards
consolidation with only one provider of rescue services. AUDIT OFFICE 19
BETTER PRACTICE
The State Rescue Board was set up in 1989. Its primary role is to ensure GUIDES
efficient and effective rescue services are maintained throughout the
state.
In this audit, we examined how well placed the Board was to provide
assurance to Parliament and the community that the organisation of
rescue services in NSW best serves those in need of rescuing.
Audit Opinion
The number of agencies and volunteer organisations involved in rescue
presents challenges to how best to coordinate services. To address this
issue, the Government established the Board. This was an effective
initiative in our view.
The Board has established policies and procedures that:
Effectively coordinate single incident rescue
Establish minimum requirements for equipment and training
Remove confusion over areas of responsibility.

Awareness is published by The Audit Office of New South Wales, Level 15, 1 Margaret Street
Sydney NSW 2000, GPO Box 12, Sydney NSW 2001 Telephone [phone] Fax [phone]
Email [e-mail] Website www.audit.nsw.gov.au
CONTENTSThis was not always the case, and the Board has been successful in facilitating
change. The next challenge that we consider the Board needs to address is: are
rescue services arranged so as to perform effectively and in the most economical
way?
It may be that they are. But at present the Board is not in a position to be confident
about this, as it is not provided with enough detailed information on how best to
arrange rescue and on rescue performance.
Comparisons with other jurisdictions suggest that whilst current arrangements
operate adequately, other ways of organising rescue are worth careful
examination.
The Board has recognised the need for better information on performance and has
recently introduced minimum reporting standards for road rescue. We agree with
the Board’s approach and would like to see this extended to include all rescue types
and reporting against service standards.
We also believe that the Board should be able to assure the Government that
arrangements for rescue in NSW are optimal.
Although several reviews over a number of years have recommended reduction in
the number of rescue providers in metropolitan areas, a lack of information has
meant that the Board has been unable to settle the issue. This should be done.
Summary of Recommendations
We made a series of recommendations to improve rescue services:
Develop an overarching strategy that recommends to Government who the
providers of rescue should be
Introduce response time standards
Collect more data on rescue performance and cost
Introduce additional practices to check rescue unit compliance with accreditation
standards.
Further Information
Jane Tebbatt, Director, Performance Audit on 9275 7274 or [e-mail].
The full report is available from our Internet site:
http://www.audit.nsw.gov.au/perfaud-rep/Year-2005-2006/Rescue-July2005/rescue-contents.html
The Audit Office of New South WalesPerformance Audit Report
In-year Monitoring of the State Budget
Background
Variations between an agency’s budget and the actual outcome are inevitable
and may arise from a number of sources including changes in government policy,
unexpected service delivery pressures, industrial determinations and accrual
accounting adjustments. Some of these variations may require supplementary
funding.
Effective budget monitoring requires variations to be identified and acted on
quickly. This in turn requires effective communication between the agency and
Treasury. If not, there is potential for significant impact on the State’s budget
result.
Budget monitoring practices were reviewed in the budget dependent agencies
NSW Health, Department of Education and Training, NSW Police, Roads and Traffic
Authority and Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care, as well as NSW
Treasury. The audit focused on 2002-03 and 2003-04.
Audit Opinion
Budget monitoring has been improving; including increased focus on accrual based
financial information by Treasury and agencies. It is not yet as effective as it
needs to be, but it is reasonable. Some aspects are quite good, particularly those
monitoring the level of funding appropriated by Parliament to agencies. This is a
legacy of the traditional focus on cash accounting. The move to accrual accounting,
and a timely focus on overall expenditure and revenues is not yet fully embraced by
NSW budget dependent agencies nor in the Parliamentary budget processes.
This is reflected in the continuing emphasis on cash in the appropriation process
and the large adjustments to agency accrual-based results being identified only
close to the end of the financial year.
On the positive side, budget monitoring of appropriation funding in the five agencies
and Treasury was timely. In particular:
The number of significant funding variations was small, and
Most significant agency funding variations were for increases outside agencies’
control.
We also found budget monitoring practices supported by:
Well established processes, including extensive monthly analysis and reporting
of budget trends, and
Businesslike relationships between agencies and Treasury.
The Audit Office of New South WalesThe main problems we identified were:
Large adjustments and accelerated spending patterns by agencies at year-end
Treasury-agency relationships, while businesslike, are not sharing information in
the most effective ways
A focus in Treasury and agencies on year-end budget result and limited focus on
monthly targets, and
Parliamentary budget controls still focusing largely on a cash basis, despite the
adoption of accrual accounting a decade ago.
Summary of Recommendations
Net cost of services, rather than the cash based Consolidated Fund appropriations,
should become the prime focus of Parliamentary control and each agency’s net cost
of services should be set by Parliament as part of the Budget approval process.
Treasury should modify monthly returns from the largest agencies to have a greater
focus on monthly expenditure and revenue patterns, as well as incorporating capital
expenditure against monthly budgeted expenditure patterns.
Treasury should consider improving information flow with agencies through a charter
that establishes roles and responsibilities between Treasury analysts and agencies
and by developing its Financial Information System to provide for benchmarking of
agencies’ budget performance and practices.
More definitive measures of budget performance should be introduced into CEO
performance agreements.
Further Information
Sean Crumlin, Director Performance Audit, on [phone] or [e-mail].
The full report is available from our Internet site
http://www.audit.nsw.gov.au/perfaud-rep/Year-2005-2006/StateBudget-July2005/budget-contents.html
The Audit Office of New South WalesACCOUNTING UPDATE
Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB)
Meeting 6-7 July 00
The AASB discussed the following matters:
Strategy and Work Program
The Board agreed an approach to a review of the activities and role of the UIG. The
Board discussed proposals for working more closely with the New Zealand Financial
Reporting Standards Board. It was agreed to trial project sharing and that joint
meetings from time to time were desirable.
UIG Report
The Board approved UIG Interpretation 1001 ‘Consolidated Financial Reports in
relation to Pre-Date-of-Transition Dual Listed Company Arrangements’.
Consolidations
The Board agreed to issue an IASB Exposure Draft that proposes amendments to IAS
27 ‘Consolidated and Separate Financial Statements’ to reflect only those changes
arising from the IASB’s decisions relating to Phase 2 of its Business Combinations
project. The ED will include an AASB preface highlighting certain proposals.
Comments are called for by the end of September 2005.
Financial Instruments
If IFRS 7 ‘Financial Instruments: Disclosures’ and the Amendments to IAS 1
‘Presentation of Financial Statements: Capital Disclosures are issued before the
September AASB meeting, the Board will consider the draft Australian equivalent
Stand