Enhanced Commonwealth Performance Framework
Discussion Paper — August 2014
Key points from the ARC perspective
The ARC currently reports on much of the performance information highlighted in the discussion
paper, all be it in a slightly different format from that proposed. However, the ARC, like other small
government agencies, feels the impact of regulatory change to a greater extent than larger
departments. We ask that the scope of the changes to performance information, Portfolio Budget
Statements (PBS) and corporate plan as well as the level of guidance to be provided by the
Department of Finance, takes this into consideration.
Current ARC requirements
 Under the Australian Research Council Act 2001 (ARC Act), the CEO must prepare a corporate
plan for approval by the Minister. The ARC Act has been amended in line with the requirements
under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013.
 The ARC’s annual report must include an assessment of the CEO’s performance of his or her
functions during that period.
 The ARC’s Annual Report and Corporate Plan must be tabled in both Houses of Parliament.
Performance Framework
 We believe that the detailed performance information should be included in each entity’s
corporate plan, not the Portfolio Budget Statements (PBS). The PBS is already a complex
document and the primary focus should remain on resource allocation. The performance
information will still be tabled in Parliament if it is published in the corporate plan instead of the
PBS. Separating the publication of resource allocation and performance planning will improve
readability and scrutiny of both.
 Separating the tabling of the two documents has the potential to improve the profile (and
therefore scrutiny) of performance information that may be lost in the detail of the PBS.
 We note the proposed 31 August deadline for publication of corporate plans. A number of
business and parliamentary-related factors could limit agencies’ ability to meet this deadline.
 Guidance material should allow entities to adopt performance measures to suit their business.
We support allowing a degree of flexibility in measuring performance, and not relying solely on
key performance indicators.
 We would like to note that measuring the outcomes of research, particularly basic research, are
difficult to quantify and often have long lead times.
 The introduction of new regulatory requirements is a general concern for the ARC. A clear
approach with appropriate supporting guidance on all facets of the framework is needed as soon
as possible to ease the initial reporting burden. As a smaller agency the ARC is interested in the
proposal for tiered reporting, but would like to see more detail on how this would work.
Portfolio Budget Statements
 The proposed changes to the financial aspects of the PBS are not expected to have a large impact
on the ARC.
 We support addressing the cash and accrual issues in the agency resourcing statement to achieve
a clearer link with Appropriation Bill amounts as there is some confusion around this.
 Some caution should be shown in merging and rationalising the movement of funds table and the
agency resourcing statement as this could add complexity and reduce readability.
 Consideration should be given to the AASB 1055 Budgetary Reporting requirements and the
effect any changes to the PBS will have on the annual Financial Statement reporting.
Corporate Plan
 There should be strict rules regarding the updating of corporate plans, in line with requirements
to update the PBS (e.g. should be released annually and updated to reflect changes in the PBS).
 Reporting against the corporate plan should be incorporated into all relevant sections of the
annual report, most likely parts two and three.
Annual Performance Statement
 The annual performance statement has the potential to increase the reporting burden on
agencies and related stakeholders, whilst not necessarily improving performance reporting or line
of sight between the three key documents (corporate plan, annual report and PBS). We suggest
including the structure of the statement in all three documents for planning and reporting
performance to enable a clear line of sight.
Performance Plan
 Producing a performance plan will likely introduce an additional burden on agencies. It is not
clear what will be gained by providing this level of detail to stakeholders beyond the individual
agency. The performance information provided by agencies should be meaningful and able to be
reported against. Energy may be better focused on making sure this is the case rather than
increasing the information available around performance.
Audit
 The complexities of performance measurement and the variations behind how each agency can
and will measure their performance would, in our view, make auditing performance information
in a similar way to the annual audit of financial statements, unfeasible. A mix of ANAO
performance audits, internal audits, and scrutiny from an agency’s audit committee is considered
sufficient.
Other
 There needs to be further guidance on the proposed inclusion of compliance information in the
corporate plan, noting that compliance information is already contained in annual reports.
 We require further guidance on cross-agency reporting. If this reporting requirement is
challenging to implement, it may be better to introduce this as a staged process, allowing
agencies to focus on getting the rest of the framework in place initially.