PUBLIC
SECTOR — AUDITOR GENERAL'S REPORT
828. Ms M.J. DAVIES to the Premier:
I
have a supplementary question. I thank the Premier for his answer. The Auditor
General commented that there are —
Too many qualifications related to
significant deficiencies in payroll and procurement controls, and information
system security. This is an indicator of significant shortcomings in these
critical areas of financial management and business continuity, and a concerning
trend.
What does the Premier say to this
comment, given that some of these problems are a repeat from last year and have
not been addressed?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
A couple of things. I do not think
the Leader of the Opposition listened to my answer. In the 2021–22
budget, we have funded a $500 million investment in the digital capability fund
to deal with some of these things. Secondly, we
also funded the agency capability reviews to examine agencies and to ensure
performance and accountability and drive improvement. Thirdly, we
provided additional funding to the Auditor General to uncover these things via
targeted forensic audits, and we made a number of reviews to the public sector
following the Paul Whyte corruption scandal. All those things have happened. I do
not know whether the Leader of the Opposition was listening before, but some of the internal governance and audit
arrangement changes were very wise in light of the Paul Whyte affair, and that included the segregation of duties
between the officer paying and the officer issuing invoices, which I think
is entirely sensible; the rotation of
accounting firms; and for audit committees to be independently chaired by a
person external to the agency. All those things have been put in place to make
sure we improve the situation.