Local Government and Economic Development
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This report examines whether councils’ economic development activities help to improve the economic viability and sustainability of their municipalities.
Compliance with the Asset Management Accountability Framework
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Victoria's roads, railways, schools, prisons and hospitals are part of the $265 billion of non-financial assets that government departments and agencies manage. Managing these assets well is important because they support the delivery of services that affect all Victorians. Despite this, many of our audits show that asset management is often neglected or poorly done, with more focus on building or buying new assets than on managing them strategically to get the best value from them.
Rehabilitating Mines
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In this audit we assessed if the state is effectively managing its exposure to liabilities from the rehabilitation of mines on private and public land.
Sexual Harassment in the Victorian Public Service
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Sexual harassment is harmful, unlawful and, in some instances, a criminal offence. Its impact on individuals and organisations can be significant.
We examined whether the Victorian public service provides workplaces that are free from sexual harassment. We looked at whether all eight departments effectively prevent, report and respond to sexual harassment.
Security and Privacy of Surveillance Technologies in Public Places
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This audit will determine whether information collected from local government video surveillance activities in public places is secure and the privacy of individuals is protected.
Fraud and Corruption Control
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In this audit we examined the Melbourne Metro Rail Authority (MMRA), Public Transport Victoria (PTV) and the now defunct Major Projects Victoria (MPV), as examples of an administrative office, a statutory authority, and a business unit under the auspices of the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR). We assessed whether their fraud and corruption controls were well designed and operating as intended. We also assessed whether PTV took sufficient, appropriate and timely action to address issues identified by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission’s Operation Fitzroy October 2014.
Appendix C. Survey of boards
The survey we conducted as part of this audit was designed to gather information on governance practices and obtain feedback on the effectiveness of guidance issued by the Victorian Public Sector Commission (VPSC), the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) and portfolio departments.
This appendix presents our methodology and the results of the survey.
Survey methodology
Selection of participant entities
There are about 3 400 Victorian public sector entities with boards.
Appendix B. Better practice in board governance
During the conduct of this audit, we reviewed better practice guidance and frameworks to identify core principles in good board governance:
Appendix A.Audit Act 1994 section 16—submissions and comments
Introduction
We have professionally engaged with portfolio departments, the boards in the case studies (from Box Hill Institute and Centre for Adult Education, CenITex, Fed Square Pty Ltd and Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute), the Department of Premier and Cabinet and the Victorian Public Sector Commission throughout the course of the audit. In accordance with section 16(3) of the Audit Act 1994 we provided a copy of this report or relevant extracts to those agencies, and requested their submissions and comments.
3 Board governance practices
Under the Public Administration Act 2004 (PAA), a public sector board is responsible for: