Page 4213 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 29 November 1994
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Madam Speaker, I would like to conclude my remarks this afternoon by thanking most sincerely the members of the committee - Mr Kaine, the deputy chairperson; Mr Berry; Mrs Grassby; and Mr Stefaniak - for all their hard work over many hours. We spent some 10 hours altogether in compiling the report. I would also like to thank sincerely the secretary of the committee, Mr Bill Symington, and his two assistant secretaries, Mr Russell Keith and Mr Chris Papadopoulos, for their assistance with the work of the Budget Performance and Outcomes Committee for 1993-94. I reiterate that I think we have done a fair and reasonable job in the time that we had available. I very much regret Mrs Carnell's public criticisms about the committee's work.
MR KAINE (4.40): In some respects the tabling of this report today brings to a conclusion a rather strange process, and I say that for a number of reasons. For example, if you look at the cover sheet on the report, you will note that it is a report of the Select Committee on Budget Performance and Outcomes; but, if you look at the title of the report, it does not say anything about the budget. It says that it is a report on the performance and outcomes of ACT government agencies. That raises a rather interesting issue about the process that we have just completed. The other interesting thing about this report is that, if you look at the opening pages, it does not really describe what the committee was intended to do; it is very broad. I suppose that that is consistent with what actually happened.
I would like to point out that it has been noted that the report is a rather bland one; but I suggest that people need to read the words carefully, because they were not written lightly and the words mean what they say. I would like to run through three or four aspects of this report and deal with the words that appear. The first thing that was apparent to the committee was that we were not able to do a review of the budget, because the documents that were presented to us were the annual reports of agencies. They included financial reports as at the end of the year for each agency, and they were presented as aggregate reports for the total agency. There was no breakdown of information to the subprogram level, and it has always been at the subprogram level that estimates committees have done their examination, to find out what was appropriated, for what purpose, whether that money was spent and whether it was spent for the purpose for which it was appropriated and had a beneficial outcome. The committee was totally unable to do that.
In fairness, this year we were operating on the basis of a new process; but the committee could have expected that the agencies would have anticipated that the committee would want to do what it had done in previous years and that the agencies would have provided a breakdown of the financial data so that the committee could have done what it was established to do. That was not possible. In reporting on this, paragraphs 2.1 to 2.4 of the report talk about the lack of financial information. For example, paragraph 2.2 states:
... the information provided was found to be insufficient to enable the Committee to fully examine each agency's performance ...
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