Ms ROSOL – Thanks. I want to ask a question about the Auditor‑General’s report into community service organisation funding released in May because it wasn’t great. It said that there are ineffective funding frameworks and arrangements. Their funding of community service organisations isn’t strategic, it doesn’t follow best practice, it doesn’t manage risks. As part of all that, the department wasn’t able to produce a list that contained all the funding agreements that were administered. What actions are being taken to address the problems and do you have a list available now with the funding agreements that you could provide to us?
And then, will the findings be used to justify cuts to community service organisations? For example, will you cut funding agreements or not fund new agreements with the justification that they don’t align with strategic plans? Because that was one of the findings of the Auditor‑General’s report. Sorry, that was an omnibus question.
Mrs ARCHER – I will ask the Secretary to respond to the first part of your question. In relation to the second part of your question, of course, we give regard to the Auditor‑General’s report. When it comes to funding allocations for community organisations, we continue to engage in that in the way that we have and will. I also point, again, to the work that’s being undertaken on the preventive health strategy, mostly because I want to really encourage community sector organisations to engage with that. We want the work that we’re doing, both by ourselves and in partnership with community organisations, to align with those strategies to avoid duplication, and, importantly, to be able to identify where those gaps are and to meet them. I will ask the Secretary to speak to the Audit office report.
Mr WEBSTER – Through you, minister, the department accepted the recommendations of the report and we are going through implementing those. The first step of that was to centralise our grants team, back to the future, as Ms Haddad would attest.
