Each of these documents is important in its own right to the transparency and accountability of government. Entities should standardise their approach to the extent possible to avoid duplication of effort. Some work has already been done by the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit and Finance to limit the amount of duplicate performance information in portfolio budget statements and corporate plans, but we believe that more can be done to clarify how and why performance information is reported across these different documents, and to explain these integrated requirements to entities. This could be provided in a number of ways, including through refining guidance material, communities of practice forums and lessons learned papers that cover the complete performance reporting cycle, as proposed earlier. The discussion in the Commonwealth of the concept of a clear read has, to date, been focused on performance information. Financial statements are largely seen to meet an accountability requirement, and there are few linkages between the two sets of information. Increasingly, private sector companies are integrating or linking the strategies and objectives in their strategic and business plans to the financial results that they achieve. We recognise that the interests and focus of public sector stakeholders can be different to those of company shareholders. However, we see merit in Finance leading work to see how entities can better demonstrate how an entity’s strategies and performance are reflected in its financial results. This will improve the line of sight between the financial statements and other planning and reporting documents.
Each of these documents is important in its own right to the transparency and accountability of government. Entities should standardise their approach to the extent possible to avoid duplication of effort. Some work has already been done by the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit and Finance to limit the amount of duplicate performance information in portfolio budget statements and corporate plans, but we believe that more can be done to clarify how and why performance information is reported across these different documents, and to explain these integrated requirements to entities. This could be provided in a number of ways, including through refining guidance material, communities of practice forums and lessons learned papers that cover the complete performance reporting cycle, as proposed earlier. The discussion in the Commonwealth of the concept of a clear read has, to date, been focused on performance information. Financial statements are largely seen to meet an accountability requirement, and there are few linkages between the two sets of information. Increasingly, private sector companies are integrating or linking the strategies and objectives in their strategic and business plans to the financial results that they achieve. We recognise that the interests and focus of public sector stakeholders can be different to those of company shareholders. However, we see merit in Finance leading work to see how entities can better demonstrate how an entity’s strategies and performance are reflected in its financial results. This will improve the line of sight between the financial statements and other planning and reporting documents.
PGPA_Independent_Review_-_Final_Report.docx