Annual reports of agencies

1.1        The annual reports of the following agencies in the Attorney-General's portfolio were referred to the committee for examination and report during the period 1 November 2015 to 30 April 2016:

• Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity;[1]
• Australian Crime Commission;[2]
• Australian Federal Police;[3]
• Australian Human Rights Commission;
• Australian Institute of Criminology;
• Australian Law Reform Commission;
• Australian Security Intelligence Agency;
• Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre;
• Family Court of Australia;
• Federal Court of Australia;
• National Archives of Australia and National Archives of Australia Advisory Council;
• Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman;[4] and
• Office of Parliamentary Counsel.

1.2        No annual report was referred to the committee over this time period from the Immigration and Border Protection portfolio.

Consideration of annual reports

1.3        The committee considered, but has not reported on, the annual reports of the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement have specific responsibility for overseeing these agencies.

1.4        Similarly, the committee has considered, but not reported on, the annual report of the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman, as the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee has responsibility for overseeing this agency.

1.5        While the committee has considered all reports presented during this period, on this occasion it has decided to examine in detail the reports of the Australian Law Reform Commission and the Australian Institute of Criminology, as these have not been recently covered by the committee, and the Australian Human Rights Commission, due to reasons outlined in paragraph 1.24.

Australian Law Reform Commission

1.6        The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) is a national independent statutory body which conducts inquiries into aspects of Australian law and related processes for the purpose of law reform. The ALRC operates under the Australian Law Reform Commission Act 1996.

1.7        Its annual report is prepared in accordance with section 70 of the Public Service Act 1999 (Public Service Act) and the requirements for annual reports detailed under section 46 of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA Act).

1.8        The 2014–15 annual report of the ALRC was tabled in the Senate on 9 November 2015.[5]

1.9        As 2015 marks 40 years since the establishment of the ALRC, this annual report provided both performance reporting for the 2014–15 year and a retrospective of the history and work of the organisation in a special feature.[6] The committee wishes to congratulate the ALRC on this significant anniversary.

1.10      Professor Rosalind Croucher AM, President of the ALRC, provided an overview of the organisation's activities during 2014–15, with particular focus on the review of the Native Title Act 1993, the report of which was tabled on 4 June 2015 to coincide with Reconciliation Week.

1.11      The overview also included a brief discussion of the impact of the ALRC's work through citations in federal, state and territory courts, and the role of the ALRC website as a portal for accessing the organisation's reports. Citations and website visitor statistics represent two of the six key performance indicators (KPIs) for the ALRC in 2014–15.

1.12      The president's outlook for the ALRC anticipated the publication of the final report for the inquiry into traditional rights and freedoms.[7] This report, Traditional Rights and Freedoms—Encroachment by Commonwealth Laws, was tabled in both Houses of Parliament on 2 March 2016.[8]

1.13      The ALRC's report on performance provided a clear summary of the work of the organisation in 2014–15, including tables comparing deliverables and KPIs provided in the portfolio budget statements to actual performance for the period.[9]

1.14      The ALRC met two out of four deliverable targets (see table 1.1).[10] While it was explained that the number of consultation meetings and consultation papers in any given year relate to the nature of the inquiry and the timeframe set by the Attorney-General, no specific reasoning was given for the shortfall in the 2014–15 period.[11]

Table 1.1—Deliverables

Deliverable	2014–15 target	2014–15 actual
Inquiries	2	3
Reports	2	2
Consultation meetings	100	88
Consultation papers	3	2

1.15      The ALRC met four out of six KPI targets (see table 1.2).[12] It is a mandatory requirement of the report on performance to include 'a statement noting if the department has historically met each KPI'.[13] While limited trend data was provided for the KPI on website statistics, no trend information was provided in the discussion of the other KPIs. Furthermore, it is a mandatory requirement of the report on performance to include a brief explanation where KPIs have not been achieved.[14] The ALRC provided an explanation for why the number of submissions received was low in 2014–15,[15] but failed to explain why the number of presentations and speaking engagements for the year was less than half of the target.

Table 1.2—Key Performance Indicators

KPI	2014–15 target	2014–15 actual
Implementation of reports	85%	86%
Citations or references	50	77
Submissions received	250	150
Visitors to website	>250,000	950,406
Presentations and speaking engagements	25	11
Media mentions	250	286

1.16      The report includes brief summary statements about the ALRC's financial performance for the year, including operating costs of $2.736 million, with an overall reduction of $0.137 million (4.77 per cent) from 2013–14, and a total operating surplus of $0.113 million.[16]

1.17      The committee wishes to emphasise the importance of clear performance reporting and the role of the annual report to:

...provide sufficient information and analysis for the Parliament to make a fully informed judgement on department performance.[17]

1.18      In future, further analysis of deliverables and KPIs, as well as historical trend data, and discussion of the financial position of the agency in relation to its performance, would assist the committee.

1.19      The committee is pleased with the in-depth discussion of the ALRC's inquiry work and clear management and accountability reporting. The committee also wishes to restate its congratulations to the ALRC on 40 years of contributions to law reform.

1.20      The committee considers the annual report of the ALRC to be 'apparently satisfactory'.

Australian Human Rights Commission

1.21      The Australian Human Rights Commission (the commission) is a national independent statutory body, established under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986. It transitioned from a non-corporate to a corporate Commonwealth entity on 1 July 2014. Its annual report is prepared under section 45 of its enabling legislation, in accordance with section 46 of the PGPA Act and, under the PGPA (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Rule, the Commonwealth Authorities (Annual Reporting) Orders 2011 (the orders).[18]

1.22      The 2014–15 annual report of the commission was tabled in the Senate on 30 November 2015.[19]

1.23      The committee finds that the information provided in the annual report gives a good overview of the commission's role, functions and work throughout the reporting period.

1.24      However, the committee wishes to express its disappointment at the commission's continued disregard for some of the reporting obligations in the orders and for the advice of the committee. In particular, the committee is concerned about the repeated omission of a mandatory compliance index, as prescribed in the orders[20] and available in the annual Requirements for Annual Reports issued by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.[21] This concern has been raised in the committee's previous reports on annual reports in August 2011[22] and March 2014.[23]

1.25      The committee reiterates the mandatory nature of the compliance index and urges the commission that it be included in future reports.

1.26      The committee also noted that, as in previous years, performance information was not always evaluated against deliverables and KPIs as presented in the Portfolio Budget Statements (PBS).

1.27      Performance information in relation to the KPI on website usage and distribution of publications does not compare the results to the targets.[24] The report provides a further breakdown of the website usage statistics in an appendix[25] but makes no reference to performance targets; specifically, statistics are presented in the form of page views and unique visitors, not as overall website hits as per the KPI. The committee notes that the commission's website usage statistics have been inconsistently represented in the reports of the last seven years.

1.28      The website usage target was previously expressed as 'more than 4 million page views (35 million website hits)' in 2008–09[26] and simplified in 2009–10 to the current target of '>35 million website hits'.[27] The commission registered over 93 million hits in 2008–09[28] and over 110 million in 2009–10,[29] but stopped reporting hits altogether in 2010–11 in favour of page views and unique users.[30] In 2013, the commission began using a new website and changed its method of web statistics collection. It stated in its report that year:

Previous website statistics cannot be compared to [statistics from the new software] because they measure different data.[31]

1.29      However, the KPI was not updated to reflect a change in statistics data. The committee notes that were the KPI still defined as 'more than 4 million page views' as in 2008–09, the commission would clearly been shown to have exceeded this target in each subsequent year to date.  

1.30      The committee recommends that the performance targets which have been set around website usage should be measured by page views and not by website hits, if this is the method the commission continues to report.

1.31      Conversely, the report once again provided comprehensive reporting on performance against the three KPIs addressing the commission's handling of complaints.[32] The committee is pleased to note that the commission continues to exceed targets in these areas.

1.32      The committee considers the 2014-15 annual report of the Australian Human Rights Commission to be ‘apparently satisfactory’, but expresses an ongoing concern about the absence of some reporting requirements and disregard for the committee’s previous advice.

1.33      The committee strongly recommends that the commission take the opportunity to review the structure and content of its annual report in light of new guidelines for annual reports for corporate Commonwealth entities from 2015-16 onwards, with a particular focus on compliance with mandatory reporting requirements and improved performance reporting against deliverables and KPIs.

Australian Institute of Criminology

1.34      The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) is a national statutory agency established under the Criminology Research Act 1971, undertaking and communicating evidence-based research on crime and justice. In October 2015, AIC staff transferred into the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) under a Machinery of Government process; however further legislative amendments are required to fully merge the agencies.[33] The Australian Crime Commission Amendment (Criminology Research) Bill 2015, which set the parameters for this merge, was before the Senate and lapsed at the prorogation of Parliament on 17 April 2016. The Australian Crime Commission Amendment (Criminology Research) Bill 2016 was subsequently introduced to the House of Representatives on 14 September 2016. The ACC merged with CrimTrac on 1 July 2016 to create the new Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.

1.35      The AIC annual report is prepared in accordance with section 49 of its enabling legislation, section 70 of the Public Service Act, and the requirements for annual reports detailed under section 46 of the PGPA Act.

1.36      The 2014–15 annual report of the AIC was tabled in the Senate on 23 November 2015.[34]

1.37      In the annual report, Dr Adam Tomison, the outgoing Director of the AIC, gave an overview of the research and communications achievements of the institute during the 2014–15 period, as well as a brief overview of the proposed merge with the ACC and the increased need for income generation in light of efficiency dividends.[35]

1.38      The AIC reported a total operating deficit of $330,697 in 2014–15, which was covered in full by its cash reserves.[36] This deficit is in part attributed to the proposed merge with ACC, as a loss in revenue from 'fee-for-service'-based work resulted from stakeholder uncertainly and the diversion of executive-level staff to activities related to the scoping of the merge with ACC and the Attorney-General's Department.[37]

1.39      However, the AIC reported good performance despite these uncertainties. In the letter of transmittal, Mr Chris Dawson, the new Director of the AIC, stated:

The Report reflects yet again a strong research and dissemination output from the Institute with all financial requirements and key performance indicators met.

1.40      It is apparent to the committee that insofar as the report has detailed KPIs, these have been achieved. However, these KPIs do not always match those in the PBS and are inconsistently referenced and covered in the report.

1.41      According to the report's compliance index[38] 'actual performance in relation to deliverables and KPIs set out in PB [portfolio budget] statements' appears on page 15, while the report index[39] lists KPI targets as appearing on page 63. In fact, there is no KPI or deliverables information on page 15, with the table of KPIs appearing on page 21; this table contains a list of KPIs all marked as 'achieved' or 'exceeded' and no relevant trend information. Page 63 contains KPI information about publications and products only, but does provide trend information for the past three reporting periods. Neither page contains a mention against the following PBS KPI, nor could any mention be found across the annual report:

All publications are placed on the AIC's website within 24 hours of release and 90% of routine alerting to subscribers and listservs [electronic mailing lists] is complete within two days of publication release.[40]

1.42      The committee notes that while the KPI around Criminology Research Grants is achieved, is it not reported with other KPI information and instead covered broadly in the chapter on Research Grants.[41] Similarly, the PBS KPI of 'Gov 2.0 measures are implemented' appears to have been covered in the director's overview[42] and in a section on social media[43] but not with other KPI information.

1.43      Furthermore, it is unclear whether the AIC report's KPI of '>90% satisfaction of stakeholders with research (according to project mid-term and/or completion survey'[44] is intended to cover either or both of the PBS KPIs:

A range of timely and policy-relevant research projects are undertaken that are valued by stakeholders.

The Attorney-General's Department and key stakeholders are satisfied with the AIC's responsiveness to requests for assistance in priority areas.[45]

1.44      The committee wishes to emphasise the importance of clear performance reporting. The Requirements for Annual Reports state that:

The 'clear read' between PB [portfolio budget] Statements and annual reports is an essential part of the accountability system that compares budgeted targets and figures to those actually achieved, and places a strong emphasis on compatibility between the two documents regarding budget and performance information.[46]

1.45      The committee has some concern that the annual report for 2014-15 does not provide a ‘clear read’ between KPI information presented in the PBS and the report.

1.46      The AIC annual report, despite these shortcomings, generally adheres to the Requirements on Annual Reports. The committee finds the report 'apparently satisfactory'.

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