Contents
- Part 1 Executive Summary
- Part 2 Performance reporting
- Part 3 Corporate governance and accountability
- Part 4 Appendices
- Part 5 Financial Management
Annual Report 2008–2009
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Annual Report 2008–2009
Annual Report 2008–2009 » Chapter 13: Our enabling strategies
Our enabling strategies consist of those elements that provide future direction, good governance, a sound evidence base and various internal controls that support information security and quality outcomes. We also have operational strategies that support our commitment to ecologically sustainable practices and improvement.
FaHCSIA develops business plans at the beginning of the financial year to establish business objectives, align priorities with available resources and prepare for opportunities and challenges that may arise. We have identified a set of five corporate strategic risks. We take these risks into consideration within the business planning process and plans, along with other specific risks.
Our Executive Management Group recently endorsed a Common Business Model for Grants Management, which applies a risk-based approach to improving program impact, efficiency and accountability.
Environmental management and performance in the Department covers such components as contributing to development of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, incorporating ecologically sustainable development principles in our use of water, energy and transportation and our handling of waste, sustainability reporting, and the development of our Environmental Management System.
FaHCSIA’s research publication series continued its contribution to the social policy evidence base and provided a record of findings from research and evaluation projects. During 2008–09, six occasional papers, three social policy research papers, one issue of the Australian Social Policy Journal and one statistical paper were published.
During the last 12 months a number of key information and application projects and services were delivered, including:
Business planning is the process that defines our required business outcomes and current priorities at all levels within the Department. Effective business planning is critical to ensuring that we are able to meet the Government’s expectations and achieve the Department’s key objectives (see page 2).
We develop business plans at the beginning of the financial year to establish business objectives, align priorities with available resources and prepare for opportunities and challenges that may arise. We integrate business planning and risk management by including risk plans in business plans. We review plans formally midway through the year and update them throughout the year in response to changes to the business environment and emerging business priorities, issues and risks.
Business planning provides a line of sight from the FaHCSIA Strategic Framework 2008–10 through to individual performance agreements. The business priorities and activities articulated in the strategic framework cascade into group, branch and state office plans. Individual performance agreements entered into by FaHCSIA staff with their respective managers are linked to the priorities of their respective business plans. Further information on performance agreements can be found in Chapter 11.
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We monitor our business by measuring our performance, reporting on the status of our projects and managing risks.
FaHCSIA has implemented a standard performance framework that provides a clear line of sight between monitoring and reporting the performance of individual funded services, overall program performance and the contribution of these programs to the achievement of FaHCSIA outcomes.
Risk-based decision-making will drive the way we do business in terms of the agreements we use, and the monitoring of service delivery and quality. For example, the new suite of plain English streamlined funding agreements is an integral reform under the Common Business Model for Grants Management, see page 258.
FaHCSIA’s risk management policy, guidelines and tools are based on the Australian and New Zealand Risk Management Standard 4360:2004.
We have invested considerable effort in strengthening our risk management arrangements in recent years. These efforts were formally recognised in November 2008 when FaHCSIA won the Enterprise-Wide Risk Management category in Comcover’s annual Awards for Excellence in Risk Management.
The executive has identified five strategic risks (covering programs, policy, compliance, workforce and whole-of-government) and an Executive Management Group member has been nominated as the owner of each risk. Each owner is supported by groups across the Department with key responsibilities for activities related to each risk.
Reference to the strategic risks is built into the risk plans prepared at every level of the organisation. Offices and business units preparing risk plans are required to specify in their plans the strategic risks to which their identified risks relate.
Broadly, risks in FaHCSIA are managed at each level of the organisation as follows:
Our business continuity management aims to ensure that the Department is prepared to deal with any interruptions to our critical service delivery. As part of our commitment to effective risk management, we have developed and maintain robust business continuity plans across all of the Department’s critical business processes and enabling services. These plans support our mission critical activities—the critical services that must continue to be provided to our Ministers, service providers, suppliers, staff and other governments.
In the event of a disaster occurring with potential to significantly disrupt our business, we are well prepared to implement alternative strategies to ensure that our critical business processes continue with minimum interruption.
To ensure our business continuity plans remain valid and effective, we regularly review and test all plans. In addition to this program, half-day scenario exercises are conducted at least twice a year involving senior executive staff with a designated role on FaHCSIA’s Crisis Response Team. In 2008–09, FaHCSIA conducted scenario exercises in July, August and December 2008.
The Crisis Response Team, chaired by the Deputy Secretary who is also the Chief Operating Officer, has the authority to officially declare a disaster and activate the Department’s business continuity response. The team is comprised of senior executive staff from across all of our critical business areas.
On 7 November 2008, FaHCSIA won the Enterprise-Wide Risk Management category in the 2008 Comcover Awards for Excellence in Risk Management. The awards recognise exceptional and inspiring examples of risk management and demonstrate how essential risk management is to the success of Australian Government agencies.
The award citation noted that FaHCSIA has undertaken a systematic, coordinated and executive-led review of departmental risk management practices and procedures. FaHCSIA has also developed a number of methods to communicate and raise awareness of its risk management policy and processes both internally and externally. These include a risk management site on the Department’s intranet, with links to tools and guidance, and regular information and training programs for FaHCSIA staff. FaHCSIA also supports the portfolio’s agencies and service providers in managing risk by sharing those tools and guidance, and by providing other risk management resources on the Department’s website.
As well as the award, FaHCSIA earned a discount of 3 per cent on its annual Comcover insurance premium for 2009–10. The discount was in addition to the 8.7 per cent saving earned as a result of our performance in the 2009 Comcover Risk Management Benchmarking Survey.
Photo above: Departmental officers accepting FaHCSIA’s award at the 2008 Comcover Excellence in Risk Management Awards. Left to right: Josephine Phillips, Meg Hargreaves, Richard Woods, John Shevlin, Will Allan, David Slater, Rakesh Patel, Emma O’Keefe.
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The Program Performance Group supports and guides FaHCSIA managers in reforming and improving the way we manage programs. The primary goals of these improvements are to:
The Department continued to participate in external cross-government reviews which had begun in 2007–08. The outcomes of the following reviews have provided the framework for ongoing program improvements:
The Common Business Model for Grants Management, endorsed by the Executive Management Group in April 2009, focuses on achieving improvements in program impact, program efficiency and accountability, service provider experience, and understanding of accountabilities.
The model applies a risk-based approach, which in practice means applying different approaches to controls such as funding agreements, selection, acquittals, reporting, and monitoring.
Deciding on which agreement to use, and the related schedule arrangements, will be determined by a number of factors, including:
The risk levels and treatments included in funding agreements will allow funding agreement managers to focus on monitoring and stakeholder engagement activities, with effort on those risk areas that have the most impact on program outcomes.
The implementation of the model is supported by key reforms and processes, including:
FaHCSIA seeks to achieve outcomes for specific target groups and the wider community by providing grants for services, primarily through funding arrangements with the not-for-profit sector.
The Hon. Jenny Macklin, MP, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, has reiterated the Government’s commitment to reducing the administrative burden on these service providers.
In line with this commitment and ultimately to improve funding outcomes for all Australians, we have been reforming all our grant-related administrative practices.
The aim is to achieve a balance between the requirements we place on providers and our responsibility to ensure funds are used effectively.
As a result of consultation with more than 50 funded organisations and other Australian Government agencies, we have implemented a more user-friendly suite of funding agreements, which will achieve significant reductions in red tape for a large number of our service providers. This includes using plain English for standard terms and conditions, which makes the new agreements around one-third shorter than previous versions. For the first time, standard terms and conditions will be used across all FaHCSIA Indigenous-specific programs, as well as by a number of other Commonwealth agencies for these programs.
Many organisations have indicated their support for the new funding arrangements and reporting requirements, endorsing it as a timely and positive initiative.
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FaHCSIA has a number of mechanisms in place that underpin better environmental management and performance. These cover such components as contributing to the development of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, incorporating ecologically sustainable development principles in our use of water, energy and transportation and our handling of waste, sustainability reporting, and the development of our Environmental Management System.
In accordance with section 516A of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, FaHCSIA supports the principles of ecologically sustainable development through responsibility for the implementation of social policies and social support.
FaHCSIA’s Strategic Policy Branch has responsibility for contributing to the development of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and of climate change and energy efficiency policies, particularly in respect of their impacts on low income households. Strategic Policy will consult with relevant areas of the Department as these policies develop.
During 2008–09, FaHCSIA has remained committed to the principles of ecologically sustainable development as outlined in the Act.
FaHCSIA integrates these principles into our daily operations by using the sustainability reporting (triple bottom line) approach of environmental, economic, and social sustainability.
Some key measures FaHCSIA has undertaken over during 2008–09 include:
As a large government agency with diverse operations being undertaken throughout Australia, the effect of FaHCSIA’s activities on the environment falls into five main categories:
FaHCSIA is undertaking the following key measures to minimise the impact of its activities on the environment, in an effort to meet the targets set by Government:
During the year, staff were encouraged to consider their individual impacts on climate change through the Earth Hour climate change event.
FaHCSIA has adopted two primary mechanisms to review and increase the effectiveness of these measures:
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FaHCSIA will publish its seventh Sustainability Report later this year. The 2008–09 Sustainability Report will again only be published on the FaHCSIA website to reduce our carbon footprint.
The report sets social, environmental and economic commitments for FaHCSIA, and details progress made toward these commitments in the previous reporting period. This assists the Department in monitoring our performance and evaluating opportunities for future improvements, and provides transparency about our wider economic, social and environmental impacts.
FaHCSIA is committed to the ongoing development of our Environmental Management System. This year, the Department achieved recertification of the system, and expansion of its scope to include Tuggeranong Office Park as well as Centraplaza and Juliana House to the new ISO 14001 standard.
We continue to work on our Greening FaHCSIA Program, which identifies areas where significant gains in environmental performance can be made cost effectively, as well as long-term measures where more significant expenditure can deliver significant and measurable improvements. The program also provides information on our Environmental Communication Plan and Greening IT Strategy.
Other priorities for the Environmental Management System are:
FaHCSIA’s 2007–08 Sustainability Report and previous triple bottom line reports are available on our website, or by emailing environment@fahcsia.gov.au, or by writing to the Branch Manager, Property Environment and Protective Security Branch, PO Box 7576, Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610.
FaHCSIA places a high priority on building a robust evidence base to inform policy and program development. The Department invests in research, evaluation, data and large surveys across its range of responsibilities.
In 2008–09 FaHCSIA increased its focus on sharing findings across the Department to support policy advice and program design, implementation and development.
There has been increased effort during 2008–09 toward developing effective performance indicators and data collection in light of Commonwealth–state reform and the Department of Finance and Deregulation’s Operation Sunlight. Targeted research, evaluation and data investment has supported this work.
In 2008–09 FaHCSIA invested in research, evaluation and related data activities across all outcomes. Activities ranged from evaluations focusing on specific program elements through to data holdings to support analysis, and broad research that enabled a better understanding of the social and economic environment.
FaHCSIA’s annual Research and Evaluation Plan was further refined in 2008–09 to more fully capture current and planned activities within the policy environment of our major outcome areas. This and other strategic planning processes were overseen by the Research and Evaluation Committee, a sub-committee of the Executive Management Group (see page 225).
FaHCSIA continued its research partnerships with research centres at the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales, administered under Social Policy Research Services agreements.
FaHCSIA’s research publication series continued to provide a record of findings from research and evaluation projects. During 2008–09, six occasional papers, three social policy research papers, one issue of the Australian Social Policy journal and one statistical paper were published and FaHCSIA research was published in Australian and international academic journals.
The Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) longitudinal survey of Australian households has matured into a highly respected data source, providing information about social connectedness, social capital, disability and housing, and connecting all these elements with income, employment and family dynamics. To date, more than 1,050 users have registered to have access to one or more releases of HILDA.
Growing Up in Australia, the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, continued to address a range of key questions about children’s development and wellbeing in 2008–09. Information was collected on the children’s physical health and social, cognitive and emotional development, as well as their experiences in key environments, such as the family, community, child care and school settings. In June 2009 a brief questionnaire assessing school transition, parental school involvement, life events, technology use, and puberty was mailed to parents. The study continued its involvement in the ABC Life television series, with an agreement to collaborate on the production of a documentary, Life at 5, signed in June 2009.
The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children completed collecting Wave 1 data in 2008 and commenced collecting Wave 2 data from the 1,850 children and families in the study in early 2009. The Wave 2 survey has an enhanced focus on preschool and schooling as a number of the study children in the four to five year cohort have commenced formal education. Qualitative information continues to be collected from families, elders and other community members.
| Outcome | Number |
|---|---|
| Outcome 1* | 5 |
| Outcome 2 | 21 |
| Outcome 3 | 23 |
| Outcome 4 | 54 |
| Cross-branch | 6 |
* Whole-of-government Indigenous projects are scrutinised through Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination processes.
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The Department produces, collects and holds a considerable amount of security classified information. It is therefore important for the Department to provide a security environment that protects our employees, information, assets and capabilities.
In November 2008, FaHCSIA undertook an internal audit on the framework and underlying processes, practices and procedures that are directly related to the storage, handling and management of sensitive information, and to identify potential gaps and associated risks to FaHCSIA. The audit report made a number of recommendations to strengthen FaHCSIA’s protective security arrangements.
The Department has created an Executive Security Working Group to oversee the management of FaHCSIA’s protective, information and IT security functions and to strengthen governance and cross-branch collaboration in developing and implementing security policy. The working group has assigned lead responsibilities and already addressed many of the audit recommendations.
A National Protective Security Risk Review was completed during the financial year. As a result, work has commenced on rewriting the Department’s Protective Security Plan, along with implementing FaHCSIA’s Departmental Security Instructions.
In 2008–09, FaHCSIA delivered an increased number of security awareness training programs to staff and contractors. These programs addressed a wide range of topics, including information security, physical security, personnel security, and incidents and investigations. Training sessions were delivered to 786 ongoing, non-ongoing and contracted staff during 2008–09. In addition, an ongoing program of security messages to staff and contractors continued to enhance the organisation’s security awareness.
In 2008–09, FaHCSIA issued, transferred or reviewed 528 national and non-national security clearances and significantly strengthened contractor access arrangements across the Department.
The Department has implemented a uniform and networked electronic access control system across ACT sites. This has significantly strengthened physical security at these locations. Further planning has commenced with an aim to link access control systems across the wider FaHCSIA Network.
During the last 12 months FaHCSIA’s Information Management and Technology Group delivered a significant number of key information and application projects and services to support the Department, individuals and community organisations.
Between March 2008 and March 2009, a number of systems that support Indigenous business in FaHCSIA and a number of other Commonwealth agencies, including those of the Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations, the Grants Management Program and the Indigenous Coordination Centres, were migrated from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. The project was successfully completed without disruption to business and with strong positive feedback from clients. The migration affected 1,451 staff in FaHCSIA and in other agencies supported by the Indigenous systems.
During 2008–09 the Department continued to progress a whole-of-organisation approach to physical and electronic information and records management that will enable users to seamlessly create, capture, store, find and manage information across all areas of the business.
The improvements included:
This initiative has enabled identified users to manage access to relevant information and self-help in a number of areas within the system.
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A strategic project to review and consolidate program reporting requirements across the Department, the Integrated Reporting Solution project, began in 2008.
This project lays the foundation for the development of a mature business intelligence environment for FaHCSIA. It maps out the consolidation of data into one source for reporting and analysis to provide the evidence to support policy development and decision making. Reporting requirements for FaHCSIA’s data are complex and, in response, FaHCSIA continues to develop an integrated reporting solution to minimise the effort required to compare data from multiple sources. The project aims to provide this as a key outcome by the end of the 2010–11 reporting period.
Over the course of 2008–09, Phase 1 of this project was completed. Phase 1 delivered four Indigenous reports to meet basic Grants Management System user needs, and will result in the decommissioning of a reporting tool which will help to simplify FaHCSIA’s business intelligence technical environment.
Additional phases of the project will commence in 2009–10, and will continue to deliver processes leading to improved sustainability in the management and use of data assets in line with the One FaHCSIA approach to data and information management.
Specific objectives for 2009–10 include the development of integrated reports from the Grants Management System and the FaHCSIA Online Funding Management System. The project will also consider reporting needs for the Australian Remote Indigenous Accommodation system and the National Indigenous Information System.
During 2008–09 FaHCSIA has implemented a number of new systems using Microsoft (MS) SharePoint 2007 and the .Net framework. These new systems have been developed to assist in the efficient delivery of FaHCSIA’s business and address both internal and external processes.
In the past year, FaHCSIA has progressed internal collaboration facilities through the development of SharePoint team sites. These sites provide a single central place to capture and share ideas, information, communication, and documents relevant to a specific target audience. The sites facilitate collaboration within FaHCSIA, particularly where members are not colocated. Team sites can be customised to support a simple business process, and can provide the functionality to develop surveys.
Approximately 50 sites and surveys have been developed within FaHCSIA to support a range of business requirements, including:
We undertook significant work during the year to upgrade SAP, our financial management and human resource system:
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Responsibility for the CDEP program was transferred from the former Department of Employment and Workplace Relations to FaHCSIA in December 2007. In December 2008 the Australian Government announced reforms to the CDEP program and policy changes, to take effect from 1 July 2009. FaHCSIA became involved in a major rebuild and migration of the CDEP manager system. This was successfully achieved despite tight timeframes, with the new system released in June 2009. The following changes were implemented in the system:
The Information Management and Technology Group continues to provide support for Northern Territory Emergency Response staff in many remote locations. Due to the nature of the sites, the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions required are often complex and support is more difficult than in urban centres.
The group provided timely support to the staff involved in the Victorian bushfires, quickly configuring a SharePoint team site to enable communication and collaboration between emergency workers and volunteers.
FaHCSIA responded to the requirements of the Australian Government Independent Review of ICT conducted by Sir Peter Gershon (the Gershon Review) and has engaged with the Department of Finance and Deregulation to progress recommendations arising from the Gershon Review.
During 2008–09 this work involved:
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