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Annual Report 2014-2015

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Our Business Activities

Working with Parliament

Unlike public sector departments and agencies, our Office does not report to any government minister but reports directly to Parliament. In order to meet our desired outcome of an informed Parliament on public sector accountability and performance, we have in place a number of initiatives to promote quality relationships with Parliament and parliamentary committees.

Parliamentary liaison program

Our parliamentary liaison program ensures that we provide Parliament with relevant and timely information, in keeping with our obligations under the Auditor General Act 2006. This benefits both Parliament and our Office and supports our mission to improve public sector performance and accountability by reporting independently to Parliament.

This program includes:

  • comprehensive briefings about our Office to all new members of Parliament and parliamentary committees
  • regular meetings and briefings with parliamentary committees throughout the year
  • briefings to parliamentarians in relation to the tabling of our reports
  • briefing our parliamentary oversight committees on our proposed forward audit program and current audit issues
  • providing information to support inquiries by parliamentary committees (page 53).

We use the results of our annual parliamentary survey (page 30), together with direct feedback throughout the year, to identify any potential initiatives or improvements that could further enhance our parliamentary liaison program.

Members of Parliament report briefings – new record attendance

As part of our parliamentary liaison program, we offer Members of Parliament a briefing on each of our reports.

We set an all-time attendance record with the tabling this year of our report, Delivering Essential Services to Remote Aboriginal Communities (Report 8 – May 2015) (page 43), with 21 Members or their representatives attending our report briefing. Usually, around four or five Members attend.

The high interest in this report was partly driven by the broad parliamentary and public debate about the funding of and possible closure of remote aboriginal communities. The Parliament’s interest in the report reinforced the importance of choosing audit topics that are of interest and that are timely.

Parliamentary inquiries

We have been involved in, or provided information to assist a number of parliamentary inquiries during 2014-15, including:

Review of the Performance of the Office of the Auditor General

As discussed in the Auditor General’s overview on page 8, the Joint Standing Committee on Audit (JSCA) has commenced a review of our performance.

The Auditor General Act 2006 (AG Act) requires the JSCA to carry out a review of the operation and effectiveness of the AG Act and the Auditor General’s performance. The Act requires the JSCA to perform these reviews on a five yearly interval.

Following a public tender process, the JSCA contracted Vista Advisory to perform Stage 1 of the review, which focuses on the performance of the Office. The review commenced in May with completion expected in late November 2015.

Inquiry into Information and Communication Technology Procurement and Contract Management

The Auditor General and Senior Director, Information Systems Audit appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to assist with their inquiry into the procurement and contract management framework for the delivery of Information and Communications Technology projects across the WA public sector.

At the committee’s request, the Auditor General provided:

  • information on the findings of our Information Systems audit reports
  • examples of agencies in WA and elsewhere that have demonstrated effective management of ICT procurement and/or contracts
  • a list of jurisdictions that have systems and frameworks in place which agencies can follow.

Review of WA Police Key Performance Indicators

Our Assistant Auditor General and Senior Director, Financial Audit, appeared before the Community Development and Justice Standing Committee, along with WA Police and Department of Treasury officials to discuss the WA Police’s Key Performance Indicators (KPI).

The Committee’s inquiry into WA Police’s methods for evaluating performance, included review of their KPIs and sought advice as to our role in the review of these KPIs. Our representatives outlined how we audit KPIs and clarified our role when agencies develop new KPIs.

 Inquiry into the provision of information to Parliament

Our Auditor General and Deputy Auditor General appeared before the Estimates and Financial Operations Committee to assist with its inquiry into the provision of information to Parliament. This relates to the section 82 work we do (page 29).

The Committee’s interest was in the Auditor General’s audit approach to reaching an opinion on the Minister’s decision and the legal advice supporting that approach.

Parliamentary requests for information or investigation

Since July 2008, we have commenced 11 audits (10 per cent of our total performance audits) following issues raised by external parties, primarily parliamentarians. We incorporated a number of other issues that parliamentarians raised into broader audits.

We consider all requests for audit through our comprehensive topic selection process (page 36).

Two examples of performance audits that were completed this year, which came about as a result of parliamentarian requests were Asbestos Management in Public Sector Agencies (page 46) and Pilbara Underground Power Project (tabled in August 2015).

Working with our peers to advance audit

Australasian Council of Auditors-General

The Australasian Council of Auditors-General (ACAG) is an association established by Auditors General in 1993. It allows Auditors General to share information and business intelligence and supports the development of effective and efficient auditing methods and practices by members.

ACAG also enables Auditors General to express their collective opinions, where appropriate, on financial accounting and auditing standards and related issues such as exposure drafts issued by the Australian Accounting Standards Board and their international equivalents.

We also participate in ACAG’s sub committees, which provide mutual benefits and learning opportunities between audit offices. These are:

  • Financial Reporting and Auditing Committee: provides strategic and technical advice on developments in accounting, financial reporting and financial auditing.
  • Heads of Performance Audit Group: provides strategic advice and information to support the development of effective and efficient performance auditing practices.
  • ACAG Information Systems Audit Group: provides a forum to exchange knowledge and experience in information technology (IT) audit and use of IT as a support tool for auditors.
  • Quality Assurance Committee: develops and maintains ACAG’s capacity to perform quality assurance reviews when requested by Auditors General (page 74).

Looking forward – Audit Learning Network Portal

We are working closely with ACAG to develop an online portal that Offices will use to share information and collaborate on projects. We have provided technical support to host the ACAG website and have led the collation of content for the portal. Once complete, the portal will enable efficient information sharing and collaboration between the ACAG offices, including in areas such as professional development, audit techniques and technical papers.

Auditing and Assurance Standards Board

The Auditor General is a member of the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (AUASB), which is an independent, statutory agency of the Australian Government, responsible for developing, issuing and maintaining auditing and assurance standards.

Our Assistant Auditor General Technical and Audit Quality was a member of a Project Advisory Group for Assurance Engagement on Controls, which is a subgroup of the AUASB.

Integrity Coordinating Group

Our Office has been a member of the Integrity Coordinating Group (ICG) since it was established in 2005. The ICG is an informal association of five independent integrity agencies whose purpose is to use their combined voice to promote and strengthen integrity in Western Australian public bodies. The five agencies are, the Office of the Auditor General, the Western Australian Ombudsman: the Public Sector Commission, the Corruption and Crime Commission and the Office of the Information Commissioner.

The heads of the five agencies meet several times each year to share information and to collaborate where appropriate. Outputs of the ICG include guidance papers and seminars that promote the concept of integrity in government.

Research into collaboration by integrity agencies

We have agreed to provide in-kind support to the Curtin Business School (Curtin University) who are researching collaboration by integrity agencies in Western Australia. The research will identify the enablers and barriers to collaboration by integrity agencies, including the legislation establishing their powers and functions, and the scrutiny of their work. They expect to release the final report by October 2015.

Developing our workforce

Meeting our mandate to Parliament, the public sector and the people of Western Australia of delivering quality audit services efficiently and effectively requires a competent, dedicated and enthusiastic workforce. We understand how important it is to manage and develop our people. We endeavour to provide all of our people with a supportive environment and to encourage them in their roles to achieve the desired outcomes of this Office.

Workforce Development Plan

Our Workforce Development Plan is integral to managing and developing our people. The Plan is aligned with the Office Strategic Plan (page 18), targeting our strategies to help achieve wider Office goals and priorities.

Reporting progress against the Plan continues to be a key focus, and this year we have put a lot of work into developing useful, timely and accurate progress reports. These allow the Office to make informed decisions about the future of our workforce.

Looking forward – Workforce Development Plan

Our current Workforce Development Plan is due to end in December 2015. The first step in its review will be a full evaluation of our performance against the current goals and targets. We will use the outcomes, together with lessons learned to develop our new Plan.

Like our strategic planning process, this will involve high level input by Executive. We will benchmark against peer groups and better practice in workforce development, consult with our employees and assess our current and future environment, as well as that of our clients. Our aim by 2016 is to have a new five-year plan in place, which will have the support and buy-in of our employees.

Learning and professional development

The Office’s Professional Development Plan is one component of workforce planning. Our Professional Development (PD) Committee works to deliver a well-structured program designed to meet both the needs of the Office and individuals.

The Office is proud to have received Recognised Knowledge Partner Status with CPA Australia due to our commitment to PD, training and performance management. Throughout this year, our employees have continued to receive a number of benefits, most notably automatic continuing professional development recognition for CPA members. We have also received recognition with the Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand as a Recognised Training Employer.

Input for PD topics, training areas and improvement opportunities comes:

  • through changes in our social, political and economic environment
  • directly from our people
  • as a result of development areas identified through the performance development and review program (page 57)
  • through employee evaluations of the relevance and quality of our PD Program.

The PD Program has a whole of office component and targeted sessions reflecting specific employee training needs, delivered across relevant business units.

An example of the targeted training we deliver is the focus groups for CPA Australia and Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand candidates. Employees doing these exams identify issues and topics for discussion relevant to their studies and the committee arranges a speaker to discuss and provide guidance.

We primarily deliver our whole of office training through monthly PD sessions. This program includes both technical and non-technical learning. Specialist guest speakers lead some sessions and we use a number of different training methods to supplement our program, including online courses and webcasts of national speakers. We also recognise the importance of fostering the speaking and presentation skills of our own employees. Giving our people the opportunity to present on topics within their expertise and providing constructive feedback has resulted in lifting presentation skills and improved employee capabilities.

Specific training sessions presented in 2014-15 included:

  • efficiencies in business activities, ranging from financial auditing to managing email
  • public sector awareness, including presentations from agencies
  • performance development and review techniques and advice
  • health and wellbeing sessions
  • accounting and auditing standards updates
  • technical accounting and audit methodology training
  • continuous improvement – review of key Office projects.

This year we also reviewed our long-standing plain English training and support resources, reflecting our strong commitment to clear, concise writing, free from jargon and government speak. Our improvements are outlined on page 67.

Toastmasters

Another way we encourage employees to improve their communication and public speaking skills is through the creation, hosting and promotion of the Fortunate Toastmasters Club. A number of our employees are active members of the group, which was formed in early 2015. Toastmasters is an internationally recognised organisation that aims to give members the skills and confidence to express themselves effectively in any situation.

Performance development and review

Last year we reviewed our performance development and review (PDR) tool and this year we began comprehensive training on effective performance management and review techniques.

For our PDR process to be meaningful and constructive, it is important all our employees have a clear understanding of what is required.

Leadership and management program

So far, 52 employees have completed our customised Leadership and Management Program for executive and managers, which we introduced in 2011. Our final group under this program completed the course in March 2015.

This is a significant investment in our people aimed at providing advanced leadership and management skills for all our leaders. Managers are encouraged to share what they have learned with the people they supervise. The resulting united approach to management and a common management language across the Office is delivering a range of positive outcomes.

As part of the 18-week course, all participants are required to apply leadership and management concepts, skills and tools to develop and deliver a business improvement project.

Examples of the projects completed by participants this year include:

  • alignment of feedback received from audit clients with our continuous improvement process ensuring all improvement opportunities are recognised and actioned
  • review, benchmarking and recommendation on the future direction of our audit-specific software currently used to produce some of our audit reports
  • a new process for managing contracted audits

Looking forward – investing in our future leaders

The importance and value of leadership training to the Office is also relevant to our next level of leaders. This year we are rolling out ‘new supervisor’ training for employees who are at the stage where they can feasibly move into leadership roles. This training will help to equip these employees for future management roles, which feeds into our succession planning.

Graduate recruitment and support

We were pleased to welcome six new financial audit graduates to the Office in February 2015. This followed a very successful recruitment program that resulted in 149 applicants with 34 shortlisted for an interview.

All our graduates attended an intensive five-week induction and training program to provide a strong foundation from the very beginning of their time as part of our workforce. The program includes:

  •  introduction to the Office
  •  professional behavioural and customer service standards
  •  practical auditing
  •  legal compliance requirements
  •  a three week practicum.

Graduate focused training lasts for three years from commencement of employment.

University liaison program

We continue to build our strategic relationships with the universities through targeted sponsorship of business school awards and scholarships at four of the Western Australian universities – Edith Cowan, Murdoch, Notre Dame and the University of WA. The Auditor General also regularly speaks about the role of public sector audit at various student events.

In August, we welcomed our first intern from Edith Cowan University (ECU) who worked on a number of projects in our Technical and Audit Quality area. Our second intern started in our human resources area in early July 2015.

These unpaid placements benefit participants by attracting credits in their unit of study while promoting us a potential employer and enhancing our relationship with the University.

We also have a long-standing relationship with ECU for student placements in our Information Systems Audit branch where the students have developed and enhanced software to provide a management letter drafting, analysis and tracking system with extranet facilities. The placement has provided the students with high-end exposure to complex IT environments.

Secondments in and out of the Office

Secondments between the Office and other public sector agencies are a cost effective and efficient way of allowing employees the opportunity to broaden their experience, improve their expertise and increase their skill set. Secondments also provide benefits to the Office with employees bringing different ideas and suggestions back to our workplace following the secondment.

In addition to secondments across the Western Australian public sector, we have an ongoing relationship with other audit offices in Australia and around the world. This year we were able to support the secondment of an employee to the British Columbia Audit Office.

As a first this year, one of our financial auditors completed a secondment with a private accounting firm. We regard this arrangement with PricewaterhouseCoopers as a development opportunity for employees, as well as a mutually beneficial way of sharing audit knowledge and expertise between the public and private sectors.

Table 17 shows the different placements in and out of our Office since 2011-12.

Table 17 - Placements in and Out of the Office

Brad Pearce Secondment

Office forums

This year as an efficiency initiative, we merged our quarterly whole of Office forums with our PD days to reduce travel time and work disruption caused by holding separate events.

We use our Office forums to:

  • inform employees of current or emerging issues
  • share relevant performance information such as how we are performing against our targets, as well as areas where additional effort may be required
  • acknowledge the achievements of the different business units
  • share relevant employee matters including employee movements, transfers and new appointments, as well as personal news relating to engagements, weddings and babies
  • hear from employees, especially those on inter-Office exchanges from other countries or those returning from exchanges, to share lessons learned.

In the first Forum of each year, we invite our financial audit graduates from the previous year to present a review of their first years’ experience as graduate auditors. The results are often humorous and always insightful. In the final forum of each year, we invite a guest speaker to provide an inspirational, motivational or light-hearted end-of-year session.

 

Our people

Attracting the right people to the right positions is increasingly important to us as we strive to accommodate our increasing audit program without growing our FTE. While the Auditor General has some discretion over the management and staffing of the Office, the Office is a public sector department and as such is subject to the obligations and constraints of the Public Sector Management Act.

Table 18 shows our FTE at June 30 for the last five years.

Full time equivalent employees by business unit at 30 June

Table 18 - Full time equivalents by business unit

Employee attrition

Our attrition rate of 10.4 per cent was an increase from last year’s historic low of 5.5 per cent. A significant portion of this reflects a key issue that is set to increasingly impact the public sector – retirement of employees.

Table 19 - Employee attrition rate

Fourteen valued employees left the Office in 2014-15: five were resignations, five were retirements, and the remaining four were transfers to other public sector agencies.

The economic environment has changed and demand from other public sector entities for highly skilled employees across a range of disciplines is growing. In the face of this, retention strategies and other initiatives identified in our Workforce Development Plan are designed to enhance our recruiting competitiveness and employee retention (refer to page 55 for more information).

Equity and diversity

Thirty-four per cent of our employees are from culturally and linguistically diverse and non-English speaking backgrounds. This presents unique challenges, especially in the area of communication skills. To assist these employees specifically, we offer speech therapy support to help

in both verbal and written communication skills. We have the online Macquarie Dictionary, which includes an English pronunciation tool available on our intranet. We also conduct introductory plain English workshops, which are stepping-stones for more advanced training.

We provide Workplace Behaviour and Equal Employment Opportunity training to graduates and new employees as part of their induction program and again throughout the year for all employees. This year the Office of Multicultural Interests presented on diversity in the workplace at our October professional development day.

Table 20 shows each diversity group as a percentage of our workforce at 30 June 2015.

Table 20 - Equity and diversity

Occupational Safety and Health

Table 21 shows our occupational safety and health (OSH) performance in 2014-15. We had no OSH incidents this year and we exceeded our training target, with 90 per cent of managers trained in their OSH responsibilities.

Table 21 - Occupational safey and health

Our Audit and Risk Management Committee (page 72) assumes responsibility for addressing OSH matters; with all employees sharing the responsibility for workplace safety and health.

All new employees receive information and instruction on their obligations and responsibilities under our OSH and injury management policies as part of the induction process. All OSH documentation is readily available on our intranet, including:

  • Occupational Safety and Health Policy
  • Management of Ill or Injured Workers Policy
  • Workers Compensation Guides
  • Injury Management and Return to Work Program
  • Incident and Accident Report Forms.

To ensure an acceptable, measurable level of OSH awareness we register all employees for online OSH and injury management training. We deliver this at two different levels – one for all employees and a second specifically for supervisors and managers. We monitor and report to executive the training completion rates, which allows us to identify specific areas for further training.

Disability Access and Inclusion Plan

We are committed to ensuring that people with disability have the same access to our services, information and facilities by implementing the strategies and initiatives identified in the Office’s Disability Access and Inclusion Plan (DAIP) 2011-2016.

As Table 29 on page 131 shows, we have successfully completed all the strategies we set out to achieve as part of the 2011-2016 plan.

We updated our DAIP this year to include Outcome 7, and through a consultative process developed new strategies to address barriers to access and inclusion in employment.

Employee relations

In addition to our professional and workforce development activity, we have a number of initiatives in place to support our employees, professionally and personally.

Employee Assistance Program

This program provides a highly valued service of independent counselling, advice and support to all employees and their immediate families, who access it for a broad range of personal and work related reasons.

Annual de-identified reporting is provided to the Executive Management Group on employee use of the program. Where trends emerge, remedial actions such as awareness raising, health and wellbeing promotion and training are considered.

Grievance resolution

We currently have four employees across the Office trained in grievance resolution whose contact details are published on the intranet and on posters around the Office, reminding employees that this resource is available and supported.

Code of conduct

The Office of the Auditor General is committed to the highest standards of corporate governance. Employees must comply with our legislation, internal policies, and our code of conduct. The code of conduct specifies appropriate standards of employee behaviour, with direct relevance to the Office’s unique role and responsibilities. Employees must also adhere to requirements imposed on professional auditors.

Employees acknowledge their understanding of and commitment to the Office’s code of conduct annually. The signed declaration states their commitment to and acknowledgement of the unique personal and professional obligations of working with the Office of the Auditor General and their continuing compliance with the code’s requirements.

Wellness Committee

Our Wellness Committee aims to engage employees in healthy activities and improve wellbeing across the Office.

This year the committee organised a number of wellness initiatives, which the Office supported, including:

  • a weekly fruit box in our lunchroom
  • group Blood Donor days – with 20 blood donations from employees in 2014-15
  • one on one ergonomic assessments for employees
  • a wellness calendar for employee health and fitness events, such as fundraising marathons
  • the annual flu vaccination program
  • a new year’s resolution support pack, containing health and wellness information
  • awareness raising of RUOK? Day, Mental Health Week and Lifeline y promotion of nearby yoga classes, Bike Week and a Box&Bike offer
  • guest speakers at our PD days, including Diabetes WA.

Employee suggestions and ideas

Our online employee suggestion box continues to be a popular communication tool. The suggestion box is easily accessible through the intranet and employees can ask any questions or make suggestions on issues relating to the Office. Responses are coordinated and posted on the suggestion board for all employees to view.

We also have an online idea box, known as the innovation wiki that employees can use to share and build on others’ innovation ideas. The Office’s Innovation team has progressively developed the wiki and it has proven to be a popular way for employees to share and discuss ideas that they may not otherwise know what to do with.

The Innovation team’s main aim is to establish innovation as an accepted part of Office culture. The Team is currently working on establishing a clearer link between our strategic planning processes and innovative thinking. The idea is to encourage our employees to think beyond business as per usual when developing strategic plan initiatives.

Streamlined police clearances

This year, we introduced a process to improve turnaround of employee National Police Clearances. This initiative has resulted in a number of efficiency gains including:

  •  halving the cost of obtaining clearances
  • decreasing internal administration
  • no out of pocket expenses for employees.

Doing our bit for charity

We have long participated in fundraising activities and we pride ourselves on doing our bit for charity. Some of the fundraising efforts we conducted throughout 2014-15 included:

  • Cancer Council’s Biggest Morning Tea
  • Ride to Conquer Cancer
  • Movember for men’s health
  • Wear Purple for Epilepsy.

Social club

Our Office Social Club has a wide membership across the Office. The Club organises events throughout the year, with many providing additional fundraising support for the various charities listed above.

Key events in 2014-15 included a Christmas lunch, an end of financial year lunch and a number of social sundowners.

Information technology and management

Information technology offers both opportunity and challenges. Our Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Committee (page 72) considers our use of ICT in achieving business objectives while addressing the risks and challenges.

Information technology

We are now into the third year of our Information Technology (IT) Strategic Plan. While the first two years of the plan laid the foundation and put in place strong procedures and policies, this year we have been able to progress to the next phase to consolidate and enhance our delivery of IT services to the Office.

Throughout the year, we have focused on engagement and consultation across the business. These discussions have provided us the opportunity to look at new advancements in technology and how we can best use those to make further improvements in the four key areas of; governance, information management, service management and innovation and technology.

At the beginning of 2015, we identified four key principles, which would underpin the work we do in the IT area:

  • Service – provision of best practice and innovative ICT services, applications and infrastructure
  •  Engagement – engage with the business so that outcomes provided are aligned with business needs
  •  Accessibility and security – ensure employees accessibility to information whilst maintaining security and confidentiality of all Office information
  •  Governance – provide an efficient and effective information governance framework that supports our current business needs and ensures we identify, consider and treat all risks.

Some of our key activities this year included:

  • a review of all our existing service contracts with external providers. This included updated service level agreements and tighter and more accountable project management processes
  • rollout of new laptops to all our employees to replace ageing technology and a laptop memory upgrade
  • update and launch of our intranet platform to Sharepoint 2013, which allows us to collaborate on documents, such as audit reports (refer to ‘Audit methodology’ on page 66), and present business intelligence information to the Office from other existing systems.

Key milestone – introduction of our new automated accounts payable system

This year we successfully introduced a new system to manage our payments and processes through our Finance Branch. We have historically relied on paper-based invoicing to process our invoices and purchase orders throughout the business. Our new integrated system, ‘Kofax Total Agility’, processes these online, thereby saving time and reducing paper use. We have also been able to automate much of our reporting requirements and can deliver business intelligence information more efficiently. We continue to develop this system to further meet business requirements.

Audit methodology software

The way we conduct and produce our audit work is one of our most important considerations.

A wide range of audit software is available, though since 2009 we have used a specifically designed public sector software package titled IPSAM for our financial auditing and ASPIRE for our narrow scope performance auditing.

This year significant work has gone into developing the functionality of our current intranet platform to meet the audit software requirements for performance auditing, particularly the collaboration requirements. This new functionality was successfully trialled in 2015 in our Performance Audit business unit, which undertakes our broad scope performance audits.

Looking forward – Audit methodology

Our ultimate goal is to have both our performance audit business unit areas – Performance Audit (which does broad scope performance audits) and Information Systems Performance Audit (which does narrow scope performance audits) – using the one software that meets all our defined business needs. There are security, support and operational efficiencies in using one platform, however given the different nature of the types of audit each area does, the challenge is finding a solution that satisfies all our requirements and still meets our quality assurance standards. We are aiming to have an agreed solution in place by the end of 2015.

Information management

Audit offices rely on business intelligence and information to assist in key decision-making. This year we have put significant effort into achieving greater efficiencies and effectiveness in this area, including:

  • integration of current business information systems to make information more accessible. An example is the automatic import of data from our human resources management system into our practice management system, which allows us to produce reports using real time data
  • development of a ‘single point of truth’ concept that reduces duplication of effort while providing access to current information
  • automated management reporting, reducing manual processes, which has also improved the reliability and accuracy of the data generated.

Communications

This year we have focused our communications activity primarily around three key areas:

  •  simplifying our reports using a more tailored ‘Plain English’ approach
  •  efficient production and enhanced accessibility of our audit reports
  • increased communication with our external stakeholders, including Members of Parliament, public sector agencies and the wider community.

Plain English review

The Office is committed to plain English writing, which is free of jargon and government speak. Consistent with this commitment was a review in 2014 of our long-standing approach to training to ensure it still met our requirements.

As a result, we reinvigorated our training to include:

  • a new ‘Editing’ course targeted at senior reviewers to establish a shared set of expectations for reports
  •  training in writing corporate documents
  •  snapshot assessments of key reports during drafting to identify messaging issues early.

We also increased the involvement of the Communications branch during the report writing process to assist in identifying key messages, develop clear reporting structures and identify writing issues early in the process (page 12). This has already shown efficiency and quality gains with many of the writing and messaging issues resolved before the draft reports get to our Executive for approval.

Efficient production and enhanced accessibility of our audit reports

This year we introduced a new customised Word template for use by our audit teams when developing their audit reports from initial draft through to the final document. We previously drafted the reports in Word before transferring them to a graphic design software package for printing. This initiative has had a number of benefits, including:

  • Reduced risk – producing the audit reports from start to print in Word has eliminated many of the quality and version control risks we faced when transferring from one software package to another.
  • Reduced time and effort – eliminating the need to transfer our draft reports into a graphic design software package has saved us anywhere from two days to a week in layout and editing time, depending on the complexity of the report.
  • More efficient online reporting – we have gradually reduced the hard copy reports we print (from around 250 in 2010 to 80 copies in 2015). Word documents transfer to our website much easier and with more reliable formatting than pdf documents. It is now much more efficient for us to convert our hard copy reports into an online format.

Increased communication with our external stakeholders

To achieve our purpose of ‘serving the public interest’ it is vitally important that we produce work that matters to Parliament and ultimately the community. One way we can ensure our audit report topics matter to a wide audience is to ask for community feedback and gauge community response to our work.

This year we have:

  • added a ‘Have Your Say’ feedback button to the work in progress page on our website, encouraging community feedback on our upcoming audit topics
  • started using Twitter to promote our upcoming audit topics and to invite feedback (@OAG_WA)
  • increased the use of community surveys to inform our audit reports (page 39)
  • enhanced the accessibility of our online reports by creating a mobile device view which people can access on mobile phones and tablets
  • allowed employees to access Twitter and LinkedIn from their work computers, adhering to our social media policy, so they can keep aware of current issues and trends that could feed into our report topic selection process (page 36).

These initiatives have resulted in a significant increase in referrals and enquiries made to our Office, many of which feed directly into our audit topic selection process (page 36).

Energy Management Plan

This year we reduced our energy consumption by three per cent, which has put us on track to meet our target of a five per cent reduction over five years.

In keeping with our corporate policy and strategic plan, we are committed to limiting our use of resources and minimising waste.

An example of a simple, yet effective energy saving initiative we introduced this year was scanning of human resource (HR) forms. Employees are required to submit a number of different forms and information for recording on their personnel files. Rather than request paper copies, our HR branch programmed the communal photocopiers to scan documents directly to the HR email inbox for electronic filing.

We have identified three key focus areas in our Energy Management Plan 2012-16:

  • Measurement – accurate measurement and monitoring provides a baseline for achieving comparable results. To achieve this we examine our monthly utility statement and maintain an ongoing record of energy usage by floor to identify significant variations.
  • Behaviour – promoting energy conservation and energy efficient behaviour among staff can also lead to savings. We encourage staff to turn office equipment off when not in use and we promote responsible energy usage, both at home and at work.
  • Technology – utilising energy efficient technology and using existing equipment more efficiently can provide significant long-term savings.

We achieve this by considering the life cycle costs of all new plant and equipment, ensuring equipment replacement programs considers energy efficient alternatives and where possible set high energy usage equipment to auto save.

 

You can view the full OAG 2014-2015 Annual Report as a pdf here.
Page last updated: April 20, 2016

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