A Public Interest Map:
An Independent Review of Queensland
Government Boards, Committees and Statutory
Authorities
Part A Report
by the Independent Reviewers:
Ms Simone Webbe
Professor Pat Weller AO
1 December 2008
i
Contents
1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 3
2. Executive summary .............................................................................................. 5
3. Distributed public governance............................................................................. 7
3.1
Role of Government .................................................................................. 7
3.2
Form of Government ............................................................................... 10
3.3
Queensland in focus ................................................................................ 13
4. The Challenges ................................................................................................... 18
4.1
Bureaucracy and red tape ....................................................................... 18
4.1.1 Growth of non-departmental bodies ................................................... 18
4.1.2 Why is there bureaucracy and red tape .............................................. 20
4.2
Governance .............................................................................................. 24
4.2.1 Risk ................................................................................................. 25
4.2.2 Hard and soft attributes of governance............................................... 26
4.2.3 The high performing board ................................................................ 27
4.2.4 Corporate governance vs public sector governance.............................. 28
4.2.5 The public interest ............................................................................ 30
4.3
Independence and ministerial responsibility ......................................... 33
4.3.1 The board’s perspective .................................................................... 36
4.3.2 The director-general’s perspective...................................................... 38
4.3.3 Parliament ....................................................................................... 41
5. A comparative view of principles....................................................................... 42
5.1
Organisational form and reasons............................................................ 42
5.2
Governance .............................................................................................. 46
A Public Interest Map  Contents
ii
6. A Public Interest Map for Government Bodies .................................................. 49
6.1
The Threshold Test (Why) ...................................................................... 52
6.2
The Organisational Form Guide (What)................................................. 56
6.3
The Good Governance Framework (How) ............................................. 60
6.3.1 Legislative........................................................................................ 60
6.3.2 Non-legislative ................................................................................. 63
6.4
Reducing bureaucracy and red tape ....................................................... 64
7. Preliminary Recommendations.......................................................................... 65
8. Next Steps .......................................................................................................... 69
Appendices
Appendix A
Terms of Reference: Review of Government Boards,
Committees and Statutory Authorities ...................................................... 70
Appendix B
List of Government Bodies for inclusion in Review by Portfolio (2008) ........ 71
Appendix C
Overview of Queensland Bodies by Sector,
Type and Category (2008) ..................................................................... 83
Appendix D
Queensland Bodies by Expenditure and
Revenue (2008) .................................................................................... 85
Appendix E
Current Organisational Form Options in Queensland (2008) ....................... 87
Appendix F
Types of Bodies Captured by Review (2008) ............................................ 90
Bibliography............................................................................................................. 91
A Public Interest Map  Contents
3
1
Introduction
On 12 March 2008, the Premier Anna Bligh announced a major public sector reform program
with five new public sector reform initiatives. One of the public sector reform initiatives was
the Review of Queensland Government Boards, Committees and Statutory Authorities.
The Premier said the public sector reform initiatives would result in the most wide ranging
changes to the Queensland public sector in the past decade. The reforms are to help ‘create
a more modern, efficient, and effective public service’ with the review of government bodies
to reduce ‘both number and cost’. The Premier said, ‘I want to cut unnecessary red tape
and identify and free up people and funding for the delivery of core public services’.1
The terms of reference state that the purpose of the review is to reduce bureaucracy and
red tape, whilst improving efficiency and maintaining regulatory integrity.2
The review is to be delivered in two stages.
Part A is to consider the current framework of government bodies and recommend a
governance decision-making model for improving the relevance, efficiency and effectiveness
of the roles and functions currently performed by government bodies.
Part B is to review all 457 government bodies individually and identify which are working
efficiently and which should be abolished. The terms of reference also anticipate that
functions may be transferred to another body or merged into a department. By the nature
of the review’s high level terms of reference and short timeframe, these individual reviews
will not be intensive strategic management review undertakings into each body. Part A
review outcomes will inform the Part B review process in answering the Premier’s terms of
reference.
Appendix A copies the review’s terms of reference. Appendix B lists the government bodies
under review.
The independent review commenced in July 2008 and is being conducted by Ms Simone
Webbe (a former Deputy Director-General of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet)
and Professor Patrick Weller AO (who holds the Premier of Queensland Chair of Governance
and Public Management and is Director of the Centre for Governance and Public Policy at
Griffith University).
The review has a website link at:
<www.premiers.qld.gov.au/Government/Boards_and_committees/Review>.
In response to a standard set of audit guidelines for the review, Queensland Government
departments conducted a self-audit of the government bodies within their respective
portfolios during August 2008. In September 2008, the reviewers placed a public notice in
state-wide newspapers advising of the conduct of the review and inviting public contributions
on the review’s terms of reference. The total number of written contributions received was
22.
1
2
Bligh, A.M., Ministerial Media Statement, 12 March 2008.
Terms of Reference (at Appendix A).
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 1
4
In September 2008, the reviewers also wrote to all chief executive officers, chairpersons and
members of government boards, committees and statutory authorities in Queensland and
invited their participation in an online survey. A total of 588 valid surveys were completed
(68 CEOs, 509 members plus 11 non-defined).
The reviewers conducted an extensive literature search and analysis, including recent review
and study material within Australia and internationally. Preparation of the Part A report has
also benefited from extensive consultation across government following the portfolio audits
and the reviewers have met with key stakeholders representing government, independent
statutory offices, and business.
The Part A report provides a governance decision-making model for improving the relevance,
efficiency and effectiveness of government bodies in Queensland (see chapter 6, pp. 49-64).
The Part A report also seeks to engage stakeholder and public debate on some of the
strategic questions posed by three central challenges for government bodies: bureaucracy
and red tape, governance, and the tension that also confounds governments elsewhere in
Australia and internationally – independence and ministerial responsibility. In addition to
Part A’s preliminary recommendations, the Part A report provides supporting analytical
context to discussion questions for public submission.
Publication of the Part A report invites public submissions until 16 January 2009.
The Part B report is due to be presented to the Premier by 31 March 2009.
List of acronyms
ASX
Australian Securities Exchange
CBU
Commercialised Business Unit
CEO
Chief Executive Officer
COAG
Council of Australian Governments
GOC
Government Owned Corporation
NCP
National Competition Policy
OECD
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development
SDPC
(former) Service Delivery and Performance
Commission
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 1
5
2
Executive summary
Why do bureaucracy and red tape seem as certain as death and taxes?
Bureaucracy and red tape represent power. Worse, they can be manifestations of excess
power or power without responsibility. Power is inherently risky and no more so than
delegated power in organisational form. Histories in western democracies of the world show
governments delegate or devolve power to arm’s length bodies only to return the locus of
power and authority to the centre in its struggle to gain control and respond to perceived
risks. Once the public power is re-centralised there can be a red tape crisis which
perpetuates the quest to find the right balance between delegated public power and
sufficient control in managing risks and meeting accountabilities.
In a parliamentary democracy, not acting in the public interest is a strategic risk for public
sector governance. The public interest includes the principles of accountability, economy,
efficiency, effectiveness, and responsiveness expected of the public sector in the exercise of
its delegated public power and in the spend of public monies. Ministers of government are
collectively responsible for failures in the service of the public interest, and the electors have
proved a steady disregard for organisational form to afford any shield for the minister’s
responsibilities.
In Queensland today there are 18 Government Ministers, 23 departments, and over 500
government boards, committees and statutory authorities. The Premier’s call to reduce
bureaucracy and red tape by reducing the number and cost of the non-departmental bodies
claims stewardship in seeking to reallocate finite public resources to higher priority ‘frontline’
needs, in an infinite market of ‘wants’.
This report recommends a Public Interest Map for Government Bodies in providing a
transparent, principled and objective guide to inform consistent decision-making on the
futures of 457 government bodies under review. The map (Figure 6.1 at p. 51 and pp. 5264) addresses the three basic questions arising from the review’s remit to reduce
bureaucracy and red tape:
1. why have a (non-departmental) government body?
2. if justified, what form should it take?
3. how should it govern and be governed?
The Public Interest Map for Government Bodies in chapter 6 of this Part A report includes a
threshold test and criteria for a public interest case to answer the recommended default
question facing the creation or continuation of a body, namely: is there any compelling
reason why a department can not, or should not, undertake the proposed activity? The
proposed public interest case process requires a risk assessment including consideration of
relevant public interest principles and considerations (identified in Figure 6.3 at p. 55).
A form guide is proposed (Figure 6.5 at pp. 59-60) to reflect a consistent understanding of
the available spectrum of function, autonomy and form in deciding suitable form for an
approved body. Analysis of governance arrangements and precedents in chapter 4 supports
the report’s further conclusion that private sector models of corporate governance are not
necessarily superior to public sector governance models. Adoption of the board model of
governance should not be presumed, but contested and justified.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 2
6
Once the approved public interest case determines suitable form to follow function, the
performance and accountability of the new body is to be managed within the report’s
recommended Good Governance Framework (pp. 60-64). The Good Governance Framework
contains a common and certain set of minimum standards, process and responsibilities for
the external and internal governance of government bodies in Queensland.
A generic Government Bodies Act would provide a legislative taxonomy of form, and within
each form type, a minimum set of standards would apply. The objective for a generic
legislative framework is not to encumber all bodies regardless of their different categories
with the same standards. It is not to impose a ‘one size fits all’ regime. Rather, the aim is
for suitable flexibility across specified categories but within a category there would be a
clear, consistent, visible and readily accessible governance framework de minima.
Government bodies may adopt higher standards, and higher standards extant in establishing
legislation would prevail.
The proposed legislation would remedy the current inconsistent and incomplete governance
framework that exists in Queensland and that currently poses a public interest risk to
accountability, economy, efficiency and effectiveness of government bodies.
The proposed legislative framework for internal and external governance would be supported
by a policy framework that addresses in appropriate detail the various procedural and policy
elements of the threshold test, organisational form guide, and supplementary guidance for
the Good Governance Framework. Existing and necessarily revised policies would
complement the new governance decision-making model for Queensland government
boards, committees and statutory authorities.
Chapters 3, 4 and 5 analyse the challenges as well as the available principles and precedents
which support the various elements proposed in the Public Interest Map for Government
Bodies.
In addition to the proposals recommended, the Part A report also takes the opportunity to
invite public submissions on strategic questions relevant to the discussion in chapter 4 on
bureaucracy and red tape, governance, and independence and ministerial responsibility.
Those matters bearing further development with the benefit of stakeholder engagement are
for the conclusions in the Part B report, due on 31 March 2009.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 2
7
3
Distributed public governance
Government is not administered solely by vertically integrated departmental structures.
‘Distributed public governance’ occurs. This is where a range of boards, committees,
statutory authorities and other government bodies or enterprises share in the delegation or
devolution of public power. Some of these bodies are regulated by public law whilst others
are private law entities.
This fragmented governance model can pose challenges for ‘whole of government’
expectations, and for accountability.
Through their various service delivery or decision-making roles, these non-departmental
bodies also influence public policy development and outcomes, and the relationship of
government with its citizens. Democratic control and protection of the ‘public interest’ are
core concerns for government and citizens.
An examination of the challenges begins with an understanding of the role of government
and its various forms and trends.
3.1
Role of government
The boundaries of the contemporary state are well demarked in the developed world.
They include traditional watchman functions, such as the maintenance of law and
order, protection against external threat, and basic health and safety measures. As
vital as these are, in most national governments, these traditional roles account for a
declining proportion of public employment and expenditure. The bulk of public
human and financial resources is allocated to the direct provision of services or to
financial support. Ours is an age when the definitive role of the state is as a service
provider or financier.3
Governments have progressively expanded their responsibility for the delivery of services to
their citizens especially after the ‘postwar welfare state’ but, with ever-growing citizen
demands and high expectations, governments increasingly become ‘planners and funders’ of
services rather than providing the services directlyIn effect, governments establish and regulate markets, and provide information, but
withdraw from the direct provision of many human services. To the extent that
governments stay engaged in service provision, this is often achieved through a
separate statutory authority, such as Centrelink, or by corporatising the delivery
agency, as has been happening to government hospitals in some states.4
A decade ago, public sector leaders predicted that the Australian public service would be
stripped down to its ‘core’, doing only those things which governments had to do
themselves.5
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Distributed Public Governance: Agencies, Authorities and Other
Government Bodies, Public Management Committee, OECD, Paris, 2002, p. 44 (hereinafter referenced as OECD 2002).
4
Keating M., ‘Reshaping Service Delivery’ in G. Davis and P. Weller eds Are You Being Served? Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2001,
3
pp. 98, 121-122.
5
Mulgan, R., ‘Identifying the ‘core’ public service’, Canberra Bulletin of Public Administration, No. 87, Feb. 1998, p. 1.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 3
8
The former Commonwealth Public Service Commissioner (and later head of the Prime
Minister’s department) promoted a future public service that for the most part would have
abandoned the direct provision of services to the public being confined to a few key
functions, namely… to provide policy advice and support to the government; to implement legislation
on behalf of the government; to oversee programs on behalf of the government; to
collect revenue on behalf of the government; and to carry out statutory functions
under legislation passed by Parliament.6
There was not universal agreement for the in ‘vogue’ viewThere is no good reason to think that the public service should be reduced to its
constitutional core. Rather, it should continue to provide non-core services on a
case-by-case basis where such provision is seen to be more efficient and effective
than private sector provision.7
However, the public sector restructuring for ‘efficiency and productivity’ and microeconomic
public sector reforms pushing competition8 experienced in Australia in the late 1980s and
1990s saw itself responding to the economic environment and prevailing budgetary
pressures. The public sector structural reform that followed also drew a supporting
international context from the United Kingdom’s Next Steps reform agenda which premise
included that government should be engaged only when private arrangements were
unsuitable.
By 1997, the newly elected Blair Government in the United Kingdom had distanced itself
from agency-centred (non-departmental) public management and shifted focus from
agencies to departments and the centre of government. Blair’s modernisation agenda
viewed departments as the instruments by which government formulates policy and sees to
its implementation, with agencies being subordinated to departments.9
Similarly, Australian public sector leadership views changed from serving only ‘core’ functions
to an impatience that statutory authorities ‘fail to see themselves as part of a greater
whole’10 and the need for coordination across portfolio boundaries requiring greater
concentration of power within portfolios. By 2004, statutory agencies were being criticised
as ‘creatures of historical vicissitude rather than strategic design’ and, for the
Commonwealth, the new Department of Human Services was the ‘first shot in the battle
against bureaucratic proliferation’ noting that five other bodies were moving back to
departments also.11
Shergold, P. quoted in Mulgan, R., ‘Identifying the ‘core’ public service’, Canberra Bulletin of Public Administration, No. 87,
Feb. 1998 p. 3.
7
Mulgan, R., ‘Identifying the ‘core’ public service’, Canberra Bulletin of Public Administration, No. 87, Feb. 1998, p. 7.
8
Central to which were the 1995 Hilmer Report and subsequent National Competition Policy reforms.
9
OECD 2002, p.50.
10
Shergold, P. quoted in Grant, R., ‘The Uhrig Review and the future of statutory authorities’, Research Note no. 50 2004-05,
May 2005, p. 5, accessed <www.aph.gov.au/LIBRARY/pubs/RN/2004-05/05rn50.htm> on 17/9/08.
11
Shergold, P. quoted in Grant, R., ‘The Uhrig Review and the future of statutory authorities’, Research Note no. 50 2004-05,
May 2005, p. 5, accessed <www.aph.gov.au/LIBRARY/pubs/RN/2004-05/05rn50.htm> on 17/9/08.
6
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 3
9
The Australian Government’s Review of the Corporate Governance of Statutory Authorities
and Office Holders12 in 2003 (the Uhrig review) and the consequential new Governance
Arrangements for Australian Government Bodies (August 2005)13, have engineered the
return of some public authority and function to departments in a less devolved model of
public administration.
The ‘resurrection of a more comprehensive ministerial department’ in the post-Uhrig agenda
gives Australian Government departments ‘tighter and more direct control over public
agencies’The language of the mid-2000s has become to enforce effective delivery as well as
policy advice with the latter defined in terms of outcomes. Departmentalisation is
expressed through absorbing statutory authorities and reclaiming control of agencies
with hybrid boards that do not accord with a particular corporate (and therefore
private sector) governance prescription.14
In the end, contemporary political debate contends that the argument for the role of
government is no longer the traditional ‘big’ versus ‘small’ government but one animated by
a long term vision for policies that will make a difference.15 This is language speaking to
‘outcomes’ and ‘responsiveness’.
Balancing the role of government has wrought various institutional and organisational forms
as governments wrestle with the common dilemma confronting distributed public
governance: power and control. Government delegates functions (power) to cope with the
different, often complex, and certainly numerous expectations of it. Yet at the same time,
government wants to keep a level of control for the sake of accountability and its safeguard
of public interests.
There is a degree of parallel experience with broader organisational theory: delegation leads
to a control crisis, needing central coordination that results in red tape, until crossorganisational collaboration grows new groupings.
Organisational theory identifies phases through which a developing organisation typically
passes in reconciling tensions between entrepreneurial activity and the controls necessary in
meeting demand for accountabilityEach evolutionary phase – creativity, direction, delegation, coordination and
collaboration – ends with a crisis leadership, autonomy, control, red-tape – which
moves it through organisational adjustment into the next phase. The creativity phase
embodies the entrepreneurial activity which initially drives the founding of the
organisation but results in a leadership crisis as the growing organisation needs the
introduction of formal systems to sustain future growth. The direction phase leads
on to a situation where controls are inhibiting development, particularly at lower
management levels. An organisation which successfully addresses their autonomy
crisis will introduce delegated authority which will eventually lead to a control crisis,
Uhrig, J., Review of the Corporate Governance of Statutory Authorities and Office Holders, Commonwealth of Australia,
Canberra, June 2003 (hereinafter referenced as Uhrig 2003).
13
Department of Finance and Administration, Governance Arrangements for Australian Government Bodies, Financial
Management Reference Material No. 2, Australian Government, Canberra, August 2005.
14
Halligan, J. and Horrigan, J., ‘Reforming Corporate Governance in the Australian Federal Public Sector: From Uhrig to
Implementation’, Issues Paper Series No.2 (as part of Australian Research Council Project: Corporate Governance in the Public
Sector: An Evaluation of its Tensions, Gaps and Potential), University of Canberra, 2005, p. 6.
15
For example, Gillard, J., ‘The Role of Government – A Labor view for 2005’, Jim Cairns Memorial Lecture, 23 August 2005,
accessed <www.fabian.org.au/864.asp>.
12
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 3
10
requiring reorganisation to ensure that the organisational units with delegated
autonomy act in a coordinated fashion, involving a shift to centralisation. The
coordination phase will eventually end with a red-tape crisis where innovation is once
again constrained. Reorganisation will again lead into a new phase of crossorganisational collaboration through new groupings.16
It is the shift in control focus that ‘enables new patterns of organisational accountability to
be established and further growth to take place’17.
Is the control variable the key in reshaping organisational and institutional form for
government?
3.2
Form of government
In 2002, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported that
in some countries agencies, authorities and other government bodies account for more than
50% of public expenditure and may employ more staff than traditional vertically integrated
ministries.18
Organisationally, the OECD found some common features in how bodies had been created
by isolating structures within ministerial departments and providing them with a quasicontractual relationship with the top hierarchy of the ministry; or
 separating them institutionally from traditional, vertically integrated ministries; and/or
 providing them with a complete or partial legal identity separate from that of the
state. 19
Despite the 1990s trend to create additional public bodies, many of the bodies in the nine
OECD countries studied had been created already ‘on a case by case and ad hoc basis
without systematic reflection on the consequences for the government as a whole’. It is
poorly defined territory. 20
Similarly, Australia – and Queensland in particular – have a long history of public governance
through bodies outside the traditional portfolio departments. Local history also proves a
diversity of form and inconsistent requirements.
Currently, the various forms of non-departmental bodies in Queensland include:
commissions, corporations, boards, trusts, tribunals, councils, committees, and offices.
These may be characterised into six broad functional areas (although some bodies perform
functions across more than one of the listed categories): trading, governing,
policy/review/specialist, regulatory/registration/appeal, trustees and advisory/consultative.21
Macintosh, N. B., quoted in Spira, L. F., ‘Enterprise and accountability: striking a balance’, Management Decision, 39/9, 2001,
pp. 741-742.
17
Spira, L. F., ‘Enterprise and accountability: striking a balance’, Management Decision, 39/9, 2001, p. 742.
18
OECD 2002, p. 9.
19
OECD 2002, pp. 11-14.
20
OECD 2002, pp. 10-11.
21
Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Welcome Aboard: A Guide for Members of Queensland Government Boards,
Committees and Statutory Authorities, July 2002, sections 2.2-2.3.
16
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 3
11
The Auditor-General of Queensland has expressed concern at the ‘proliferation’ within
government, and within the broader public sector including universities and local
governments, of the use of the company structure as a means for entities to conduct
activities.22
These entities have been established for a variety of reasons. In Queensland, the
attraction of the company structure seems to have flowed in part from a desire by
entities to capture the perceived benefits from a more commercial focus for the
entity.23
The ‘managerialism’ or ‘new public management’ international reform movement since the
1980s, the backdrop for UK’s Next Steps and the policy preference for smaller government in
Australia, brought–
… management by objectives, corporatisation and privatisation, competitive
tendering and outsourcing, separation of purchasers and providers, greater client and
customer focus, and greater flexibility in employment conditions. The movement’s
guiding principle has been not so much the imposition of a single new management
paradigm but rather a more open-ended determination to apply private sector
management principles to the public sector on the ground that the public sector is
inefficient and ineffective in comparison with the private sector. The assumption that
public administration is fundamentally different from private business management
has been discredited, leading to the increasing adoption of private sector
management techniques by public agencies.24
Any presumed superiority that favours private sector structures and management
approaches on the basis of an ‘inefficient and ineffective’ public sector denies an updated
‘market’ perspective. Arguably, the same managerialism that brought the bias in favour of
private sector methods also contributed to a more ‘efficient’ public sector focused on results
through the adoption of private sector techniques and standards.
At least three reflections arise:
First, allocating a government function to a non-departmental structure because of a
presumption that the department would be too inefficient and ineffective is no longer valid, if
ever it was.
Several distinct advantages have been attributed to departments. They are flexible, so that they can be reorganised to meet new objectives, with functions
being quickly reshuffled between different bodies;
 regular in structure, with divisions and branches (though it is not necessary that
they be organised in identical ways);
 amenable to adjustment to meet crises as the top levels of staff are generalists;
 subject to direct ministerial controls; and
 able to be more or less centralised according to function and need.25
Auditor-General of Queensland, Report No. 4 for 2005, Results of Audits completed at 31 October 2005, p. 44.
Auditor-General of Queensland, Report to Parliament No. 5 for 2007, Results of Audits as at 31 May 2007, p. 37.
24
Mulgan, R. and Uhr, J., ‘Accountability and governance’, in G. Davis and P. Weller eds Are You Being Served? Allen & Unwin,
Sydney, 2001, p. 164.
25
Wanna, J. O’Faircheallaigh, C., Weller, P., Public Sector Management in Australia, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1992, p. 45.
22
23
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 3
12
Second, the greater scrutiny of government resulting from increased transparency and
accountability may render the ‘arm’s length’ arrangements that were made for statutory
office holders outside departments less important than previously. 26
Third, the managing for outcomes approach was premised on breaking issues down to their
component parts in focusing government on targets and performance. There has been
evidence to suggest that this approach proved ‘ill-suited to more complex problems, prone to
even worse ‘dumping’ of problems across organisational boundaries’.27 The
interconnectedness of problems and the greater need and opportunities for knowledge
sharing all acted to push ‘joined up’ government, however described, onto the agenda.
In the United Kingdom, joined up government created new cross-cutting roles through new
‘offices’, integrated services according to user perspectives for a life event, and created new
departments reshaping traditional structures to solve some of the most acute problems. The
joined up government experience suggests that future forms of government are likely to
involve a combination of vertical hierarchies particularly for carrying out long-standing tasks
with clear lines of management and accountability, and horizontal structures for determining
strategy and carrying out shorter-term tasks. 28
For the Australian Government, the 2005 Governance Arrangements for Australian
Government Bodies observe that the outside bodies would mainly be those bodies that are
financially sustainable in their own right in a commercially competitive market for the
production of goods and servicesThe principal functions of bodies within the GGS [general government sector] are to:
 provide non-market goods and services to the community at large;
 redistribute income and wealth by means of transfer;
 maintain law and order; or
 regulate and influence economic activity.
Bodies outside the [general government sector] are mainly engaged in the production
of goods and services for sale in the market with the intention of substantially
covering their costs. Importantly, their spending and investment decisions do not
directly affect the Australian Government’s budget calculations.
The factors that could be used to indicate that a body is likely to fall outside the
[general government sector] include whether the body:
 generates sufficient revenue to cover its production costs, rather than relying
on government subsidies to remain in operation;
 is not limited to selling its output to bodies in the Australian Government; or
 is in open competition with other producers of its type of product.29
26
Holland, I.,‘The Review of the Corporate Governance of Statutory Authorities and Office Holders’, Public Administration
Today, No.1, Sept-Nov 2004, p. 66.
27
Mulgan, G., ‘Joined up Government in the United Kingdom: past, present and future’, Canberra Bulletin of Public
Administration, No. 105, Sept 2003, p. 26.
Mulgan, G., ‘Joined up Government in the United Kingdom: past, present and future’, Canberra Bulletin of Public
Administration, No. 105, Sept 2003, pp. 27-28.
29
Department of Finance and Administration, Governance Arrangements for Australian Government Bodies, Financial
28
Management Reference Material No. 2, Australian Government, Canberra, August 2005, p. 34.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 3
13
The OECD called the non-departmental bodies an ‘old idea’ recycled essentially for
contemporary reforms, but also for their part to play in the delegated power and control
struggle that characterises the organisational cycleAgencies [non-departmental bodies] are an old idea that has been invigorated by
contemporary management reform. The typical government had agencies before it
had departments. When it added a new activity that could not be accommodated
within an existing organisation, government created a new agency, not because it
had a grand design but because it needed to have an organisation responsible for the
work. The expansion of government inevitably led to the proliferation of agencies
and to an over-extended span of control, weak co-ordination of related activities, and
an unruly public administration. Most governments responded to this predicament by
consolidating the separate agencies into functionally integrated departments. Thus,
just as agencies are now valued in some countries as antidotes to over-confining
departments, departments were once the favoured solution to the excessive
fragmentation of agencies. Historically, departments and agencies have been rival
forms of organisation: departments have multiple subdivisions and responsibilities;
agencies have single responsibility and a simple organisational structure.
Departments promote integration, uniformity, rule-driven behaviour; agencies
promote diversity, adaptability, and self-governance.
The form of organisation makes a difference. One cannot argue that the
contemporary flight to agencies is significant without also recognising the importance
of the departmental form. Organisational structure makes a difference because it
influences who has power and how services are provided. One should think of
organisational structure as a boundary that influences behaviour just as the
geographic boundaries of countries do. In particular, organisations matter because
they determine whether related activities are integrated or separated, and whether
policy and services are conjoined or de-coupled. The linkage of related activities and
of policy and services have managerial and political implications.30
3.3
Queensland in focus
In Queensland, the public sector has served the laws of ‘peace, welfare and good
government’31 through traditional portfolio departments and a comparatively large number of
statutory authorities and other non-departmental bodies.
In 1981, a Review of Queensland Statutory Authorities and Committees found that
Queensland’s large number of statutory authorities and State Government-funded nonstatutory bodies were collectively of considerable economic significance as they–




pursued a diversity of strategic development-oriented functions;
exercised a wide range of powers;
consumed a large proportion of the State Government’s financial resources; and
constituted a major source of employment.32
30
OECD 2002, p. 36.
Section.6 Constitution of Queensland 2001 (legislative power of Parliament, subject to the Commonwealth Constitution).
32
Queensland Government (Co-ordinating and Review Committee), Review of Queensland Statutory Authorities and
Committees, December 1981, p. 8.
31
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 3
14
There were at least 815 individual statutory authorities in Queensland in 1981 (and 27
ministerial departments and 50 sub-departments).33 A number of those statutory authorities
were established prior to 1900, many others were established before the Second World
War.34
In the early 1980s, the Queensland Government was concerned at the ‘considerable growth
rate’ in statutory authorities and publicly funded bodies.35
Historically, the large number of statutory authorities has been defended–
With Queensland’s large land mass and its decentralised population, networks of
regional authorities serve as a key means to balance centralised decision making. A
number of Statutory Authorities are locally based organisations; members are local
people, the benefits are locally identified and in some cases are locally funded. The
fact that Queensland has a large number of Statutory Authorities should not be
regarded as a negative factor – rather it should be regarded as a means of
overcoming many of the problems of a large decentralised State.36
In 1987, the Public Sector Review (the Savage review) reported that the Queensland
Government was committed to a ‘policy of smaller government’ and that government should
not do what the private sector could do at least as efficiently.37 The creation of new statutory
authorities was seen as an alternative to expanding the permanent public service in keeping
with the smaller government policy38 although there was a case for regional grouping or
merging of some statutory authorities to make more effective use of resources and reduce
overlap.39
The 1992 Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts found ‘much merit’ with the 1987
Savage view that The structure, composition, financing and functions of the [River Improvement]
Trusts clearly indicate that the operations should be viewed as a normal and
necessary activity of Local Government [and] that the function of River Improvement
Trusts should be a direct responsibility of Local Government.40
Despite the Savage review’s recommendations concerning the trusts and the Parliamentary
Committee’s endorsement, the strongly held alternative view rejecting change prevailed in
the 1988 Government response.41
The extent to which the State’s local governments may be suitable to take on delivery of
some of the services and decision-making currently within the purview of State public bodies
has been considered by successive reviews.42
33
Queensland Government (Co-ordinating and Review Committee), Review of Queensland Statutory Authorities and
Committees, December 1981, p. 2.
Queensland Government (Deputy Premier and Treasurer), Report on Queensland Statutory Authorities, July 1983, p. 7.
Queensland Government (Co-ordinating and Review Committee), Review of Queensland Statutory Authorities and
Committees, December 1981, p. 2.
36
Public Sector Review Committee (Chaired by Sir Ernest Savage), Public Sector Review: Report, July 1987, p. 6.
37
Public Sector Review Committee (Chaired by Sir Ernest Savage), Public Sector Review: Report, July 1987, p. iv.
38
Queensland Government, Queensland QUASGOS: The role of statutory authorities in State Development, 1986, p. 2.
39
Public Sector Review Committee (Chaired by Sir Ernest Savage), Public Sector Review: Report, July 1987, p. 6.
40
Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts Report No. 18: Review of the Auditor-General’s second report on audits of the
year ended 30 June 1990: ‘matters concerning Water and drainage Boards, etc’ , March 1992, p. 9.
41
Report on Public Sector Reform, (Queensland Government response), 1988, p. 4.
42
Public Sector Review Committee (Chaired by Sir Ernest Savage); Public Sector Review: Report, July 1987, p iv; Queensland
Government, Queensland QUASGOS: The role of Statutory Authorities in State Development, 1986, p. 2; Parliamentary
34
35
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 3
15
Queensland undertook major reform of the local government system in 2007. The boundary
changes were to ‘deliver a stronger, more efficient and more modern local government
system that has a greater ability to deliver services and infrastructure for all
Queenslanders’.43
In the early 1990s, a green and white paper process led to the corporatisation agenda for
Queensland government enterprises.44 The 15 Government Owned Corporations (GOCs) that
exist in Queensland today are not within the scope of this present review.45
However, there are companies, other than GOCs, that are within the scope of this review.
Queensland’s Auditor-General (and subsequently the Parliamentary Public Accounts
Committee46) have raised concerns at the growing number of companies (not GOCs) in the
Queensland public sector and that governance of public sector companies is an area of
governance weakness in the overall accountability framework…there will be circumstances where the use of a company structure is appropriate,
however, taking into account the fact that companies now account for a relatively
high proportion of the public sector entities within my mandate, I have reservations
that such a structure could be appropriate in all cases to achieve the outcome that is
actually required.47
Moreover as the Queensland Auditor-General has noted, the GOCs are subject to a ‘specific
and detailed [GOC] governance framework’, the other public sector companies are not.
Shareholding Ministers of GOCs also benefit from dedicated advice from a centralised unit in
Treasury that monitors GOCs, similar support and monitoring does not exist for the nonGOCs.48
In 2006, the Queensland Government established five special purpose vehicles (SPVs) to
help deliver the ‘largest infrastructure program in the state’s history’ with projects equating
to an investment in excess of $11.5B.49 The SPVs are Corporations Act 2001 proprietary
limited companies. Four of the five SPVs concern water infrastructure.50
Today, there are 510 statutory authorities and publicly funded bodies in Queensland (and 23
departments for 18 Ministers assisted by 11 Parliamentary Secretaries). (In addition, there
are at least 228 public sector companies within the broader public sector including
universities and local governments.)51
Committee of Public Accounts Report No. 18: Review of the Auditor-General’s second report on audits of the year ended 30
June 1990: ‘matters concerning Water and drainage Boards, etc’ March 1992, p. 9.
43
<http://www.lgp.qld.gov.au/?id=4461>, accessed on 7 October 2008.
44
A Green Paper on Government Owned Enterprises, August 1990; Corporatisation in Queensland, Policy Guidelines, A
Queensland Government White Paper, March 1992.
45
Terms of Reference (at Appendix A).
46
Public Accounts Committee, Review of Auditor-General, Report No. 5 for 2007, Results of Audits as at 31 May 2007, Section
2.6 Governance of Public Sector Companies, Report No. 80, September 2008,
<www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/committees/documents/PAC/reports/PAC80.pdf>.
47
Auditor-General of Queensland, Report to Parliament No. 5 for 2007 , Results of Audits as at 31 May 2007, p. 9 and p. 37.
48
Auditor-General of Queensland, Report No. 4 for 2005, Results of Audits completed 31 October 2005, p. 43.
49
Department of Infrastructure and Planning: Governance Framework for Infrastructure Delivery Special Purpose Vehicles 2006
p. 3.
50
The fifth is City North Infrastructure Pty Ltd. Department of Infrastructure and Planning: Governance Framework for
Infrastructure Delivery Special Purpose Vehicles, 2006, p. 3.
51
Auditor-General of Queensland, Report No. 5 for 2007, Results of Audits as at 31 May 2007, p. 37.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 3
16
Excluding the Government Owned Enterprises, Commercialised Business Units52, Tribunals53,
and other bodies subject to other review54 and beyond the terms of reference for this review,
there are 457 within the scope of this review.
Appendix C provides an overview of today’s Queensland government bodies (under review)
by sector, type, category and number. The health/medical and water sectors have by far the
most numbers of bodies (90 and 77 respectively) with the communities sector the next
numerous with 41 bodies.
Table 3.1 compares and contrasts the Queensland picture for 1981 (when subject to review)
and 2008. Today, there are fewer bodies. There is significantly less staff employed by the
non-departmental bodies in 2008 representing less than 0.7% of the total Queensland public
sector whereas in 1981 employees of non-departmental bodies were more than (108%) that
for the whole Queensland public service. In 1981, statutory bodies included the employers
of nurses, ambulance officers, fire brigade officers and employees of energy/electricity
companies. Today though, there is a similar dominance of all the bodies by number of
health bodies (62 vs 90 in 2008) but there are significantly fewer bodies from the rural
sector (146 vs 25) in 2008).
Queensland comparison 1981 and 200855
Table 3.1
Bodies
Number of bodies within scope
of review
Total State revenue
Total State expenses
Total income of statutory bodies
1981
815 (of a total of 949)
2008
457 (of a total of 510)
not available
not available
$2.9B
Total expenditure of statutory
bodies
Contribution from consolidated
fund
Total employees/or admin
support of statutory bodies
Total Queensland Public Service
$2.8B
$600M
$36.582B
$35.772B
$7.3B (20% of the State
revenue)
$6.2B(17.3% of the State
expenditure)
$250M
54,6231
1,284
50,170 2 (4.97% of total Qld
workforce)
not available
187,973 3 (8.26% of total Qld
workforce)
3815 (2460-male; 1293 –
female; 62-vacant)
Water related Boards (81)
Health/Medical related boards
(89)
Total number of board members
Major sectors (number of bodies)
Major sectors (revenue and
expenditure)
Hospital Boards (62)
Water related Boards (99)
Fire Brigade/Ambulance related
Boards/Committees (180)
Electricity Boards ($1.2B revenue
and expenditure)
Hospital Boards ($535M revenue
and $537 M expenditure)
Water Infrastructure body
($711M )
Universities ($3.04B revenue
and $2.78B expenditure)
1
this figure included employees such as nurses, ambulance and fire brigade officers and persons employed by energy/electricity
related companies.
2
as at 30 June 1981 excludes those employed by the then statutory bodies.
3
as at 30 June 2008, Office of the Public Service Commissioner, Annual Report 2007-08.
52
See Queensland Government (Service Delivery and Performance Commission), Position Paper on Government Commercialised
Business Units, October 2006.
Tribunals Review Independent Panel of Experts, Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal: Stage 1. Report on scope and
initial implementation arrangements, June 2008.
54
The events bodies within scope of the Events Review – Queensland.
55
Co-ordinating and Review Committee, Review of Queensland Statutory Authorities and Committees, December 1981;
Queensland Government 2008-09 State Budget Papers.
53
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17
Appendix D classifies the bodies under review by expenditure and revenue revealing that
23% of all the bodies within the scope of this review spend more than $1M each year. Of
the 12 bodies that spend over $100M (the greatest over $1B), eight are universities where
the State government’s contribution is comparatively small (approximately 4% of the total
revenue per university). However, 46% of bodies had annual expenditure less than
$100,000 with a further 15% that had no expenditure at all. Approximately one third of
bodies had zero revenue and another one third had annual revenues less than $100,000.
In terms of net assets, the comparative share in 2004 of the total public sector net assets
controlled by the four principal types of public sector entity wasGovernment Departments
Statutory Bodies
Local Governments
GOCs
45%
15%
30%
10%56
Overall, the distributed public governance picture for Queensland presents a large number of
bodies outside the departmental structure but, with few exceptions, budgets and staffing are
not significant on an individual profile basis.
The nature of the various activities undertaken across the bodies is diverse; so too are the
differences in the monitoring and governance arrangements that apply. For instance, the
growing number of public sector companies slips under the radar as their data is generally
not available (and many are not subject to this review).57
The Queensland profile is significantly different to that which pertained in 1981 because the
numbers of bodies has approximately halved and with it, dramatically reduced staffing levels.
Notwithstanding, the significance in aggregate terms of the proportion of State Budget and
impact or influence in the State’s affairs, continues.
Auditor-General of Queensland, Report No. 7 2004-05, Results of Audits as at 31 October 2004
And Public Sector Auditing 1997-2004 — A Reflection, pp. 38, 42, 45 and 54.
56
57
In the Public Accounts Committee’s Report No. 80, published in September 2008, the Committee recommended that
‘Treasury collate and maintain a central register of all public sector companies including identification of which agency is
responsible for what company’, p. 11.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 3
18
4
The Challenges
The challenge for government is in getting the balance right. The right balance of
governmental structures and systems, people and processes will reduce bureaucracy and red
tape to deliver improved economical, efficient, effective and accountable public service.
This is the public interest objective.
But the pathways to success are complex and interconnected, understandings and
expectations frequently misalign, knowledge is imperfect by nature, and critically, balance
does not remain static.
There is an inevitable intersect of dispute, if not caution, between –
 performing a regulatory function but imposing red tape;
 creating additional bodies for the sake of efficiency and effectiveness but
overburdening the public purse at the expense of higher priorities;
 ensuring adequate performance accountability mechanisms are in place but defeating
the very flexibility and independence that the structural difference was meant to
achieve; and
 granting independence and autonomy in the delegation and devolution of public
power but obscuring democratic accountability.
4.1
Bureaucracy and red tape
Until now agencies and departments have been rivals. The ascendancy of one has
spelled subordination of the other. In the future, departments and agencies will
coexist, in close alignment, but with each having its own zone of responsibility.
When things are going well, the two will stay out of each other’s way. When they
aren’t, each may blame the other, and the challenge for government will be to make
sure that accountability does not fall between the cracks.58
This review must consider which government bodies are no longer necessary and can be
abolished, merged, or should transfer functions.59
Many government bodies can make the case for their creation or continued existence.
Others will find that there are now better alternatives of form, or function, in the public
interest. Such is consistent with the presumption inherent in this review’s terms of
reference.
4.1.1
Growth of non-departmental bodies
Current international60 and Australian61 perspectives argue that the preferred premise should
be that there first needs to be good, even compelling, reason to depart from the verticallyintegrated departmental structures.
58
OECD 2002, p. 52.
Terms of Reference (at Appendix A).
60
For example, OECD 2002, pp. 47,51, Laking, R., ‘Agencies: their benefits and risks’, Graduate School of Business and
Government Management, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, June 2002, p. 1, accessed
http://www.worldbank.org.cn/english/content/Rob_Laking.pdf on 12/9/08 (hereinafter referenced as Laking 2002).
61
For example, Wanna, J. O’Faircheallaigh, C., Weller, P., Public Sector Management in Australia, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1992,
p. 45.
59
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19
Reasons in favour of the standard government department as the principal vehicle for
delivery of government services and regulatory functions includeFirst, it is quite often possible to endow government departments – or parts of themwith specific powers or exemptions from control without the necessity of creating a
new separate legal entity. Proposals to exempt one public organisation from a
specific external control begs the question of why this control remains in place for
others. Second, once an agency has been created, it is often quite difficult to reverse
the decision. Delegations of authority within a standard legal framework for
departments can be more easily withdrawn. Third, novel administrative
arrangements require careful consideration of the new risks they create as well as
their putative benefits.62
Together with the World Bank, the 2002 OECD study was interested in the perceived
increased use during the 1980s and 1990s of the non-departmental form in developed and
developing countries.63 The OECD described three organisational motives for creating bodies
with certain degrees of separateness from departments a differentiated governance structure;
 a differentiated control environment; and/or
 some management autonomy.64
In OECD countries, non-organisational reasons for setting up bodies outside departments
included Efficiency and effectiveness
o reflecting management doctrines of efficiencies arising from specialisation of
function, clarity of organisational purpose, explicit contracting for results and
incentive structures closely related to organisational objectives (including
enabling agencies to generate revenue thereby reducing demands on general
tax revenues and increasing the incentives to generate more independent
revenue)
62
63
64

Legitimating decision-making
o Independence of certain classes of decision-making from direct political
intervention e.g. deregulation or privatisation of areas of economic activity
o Greater local control of service delivery to bring services closer to citizens or
increase the possibility of local control such as moving services out of the
capital or entering partnerships with lower levels of government

Political circumstance
o Patronage; bodies created to pay off political allies, to create power bases for
specific factions, or to provide opportunities for sequestration of public assets
or resources.

The nature of autonomy
o Cosmetic – simply to give a separate identity to a function which is considered
politically important
o Policy autonomy – often associated with an independent statutory power e.g.
to adjudicate on market practices in a framework of commercial law
Laking 2002, p. 1.
Laking 2002, p. 3.
OECD 2002, pp. 14-15.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 4
20
o
Management autonomy – involving a shift from detailed external control of
budgets, staffing and procurement and a shift towards internal control of
expenditure within broad budget categories and associated greater freedom
to decide personnel or procurement policies.65
Is it still relevant in 2008 to assume66 that all regulatory functions must be pushed out to
‘independent’ non-departmental entities to save them from ministerial interference? Have
not the ‘new’ public administration reforms such as whistleblowers, judicial review, freedom
of information, ombudsman, if not the 24/7 ‘threat’ of politically damaging exposure in the
media, built a greater resilience protecting the public service from improper ministerial
interference? Some of the bodies under review were created generations before ‘new public
management’, ‘new’ public administration reforms, and (for Queensland) prior to the
Fitzgerald Inquiry. The question of contemporary relevance for the a priori assumption that
regulatory functions must only be outside a department is a fair one. There are
contemporary precedents in government departments where independent regulatory and
statutory functions are performed.
Again, the proper question in making that decision would be one of degree in getting the
balance right. It is also a question of risk. In assessing risk, it is not just a determination of
the likelihood that ministerial interference might occur but the magnitude of the
consequences should that event occur. Thus, according to consequence, there are cases
where autonomous and independent governance structures outside portfolio departments
are necessary.
4.1.2
Why is there bureaucracy and red tape
Bureaucracy, in its pejorative sense, results in a number of ways, including:
First, there was no, or an insufficient, business case raised – with contestable and
persuasive reasons – to support the creation of an additional body in the first instance. This
may be attributed to an absence of process or a process lacking sufficient rigour or integrity
to act as gatekeeper for bureaucratic excess. There may have been, for example, a flawed
presumption that the departmental alternative would be less ‘efficient’, or that presumption
could have been invalidated by enhancements to the departmental model at less cost and
bureaucratic activity than creation of a new and additional body.
Second, valid reasons for the creation of additional bodies lost their contemporary
relevance or weight through changed circumstances of need, environment, better
alternatives arising – or simply, the initial charter had been fulfilled.
Third, the organisational form established for the additional body is not fit for purpose or
the most suitable such that the efficiency and effectiveness of the body is compromised.
The 2003 Review of the Corporate Governance of Statutory Authorities and Office Holders
(Uhrig review) for the Australian Government took the view that ‘boards have little
opportunity to add value. Governments often delegate the administration of a narrow set of
functions, limiting the issues to be addressed by the authority to the efficient and effective
delivery of outcomes. This is essentially a management task.’67
65
Laking 2002, pp. 4-9.
Such assumption reflected for example in Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration, Report, Australian
Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1976; Public Sector Review Committee (Chaired by Sir Ernest Savage), Public Sector
Review: Report, July 1987.
67
Uhrig 2003, p. 35 (emphasis added).
66
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21
Fourth, the body is not financially sustainable68, or is perceived as a drain on finite public
funds in the face of competing public policy priorities, such as ‘front line’ services. There
may be misalignment of public policy expectations, communication or reputational difficulties
for the body in demonstrating value for money, or an objective whole of government review
of the business case for the body fails to earn it a share in public funding.
Fifth, there is jurisdictional overlap or duplication of functions – or a failure to take
responsibility to perform functions - arising for example from poor initial organisational design within the broader government framework;
 poor coordination, or poor ‘client’ service integration among relevant bodies and
departments (e.g. expectations for streamlined ‘client’ service in support of life events
such as moving to the state from another jurisdiction and requiring professional
registration for employment – as suggested to this Review in public contributions
made to date);
 poor management of functions (and inadequate performance accountabilities); or
 a lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities.
Sixth, there is duplication of effort across agencies in performing their respective
functions or there are inconsistent systems and processes across like functions by
various bodies and departments - both yield criticisms not only for wasted resources but for
wasted opportunity . For instance, governance arrangements by region across the State of
Queensland are different typically from one body or department to the next. Apart from the
inefficient spend in resources in collecting and analysing information from competing
statistical basis for public policy purposes, as well as in the performance of cross-portfolio
coordination functions when critical to region, there can be lost opportunity by the cost to
public policy innovation reliant on data of a less accessible or transferable quality. This
sense of bureaucracy is aggravated if the situation is an historical hangover from past
systems and processes (which would require capital expenditure to remedy in an
appropriately staged and coordinated way), or a failure to take a coordinated and strategic
view of public sector endeavour.
Many of these experiences may also be responsible for the pejorative partner, red tape.
Red tape also gets tied up in the subtle but profound transformation between regulation as a
government function for the benefit of the citizens, and the theory of the individual where a
‘user’s perspective’ turns the actively participating citizen into a customer or client. In a
different context, the 2002 OECD study canvassed the nature of this relationship change
from citizen to customer as being beyond mere language but as defining government
performanceAt first consideration, it may appear shocking that people may have greater leverage visà-vis government as customers than as citizens. But citizenship invests people with a
limited voice and virtually no power of exit; customership arms them both with voice and
exit. In today’s world, it is the customer who is sovereign, because contemporary
governments have been socialised to give primacy to services; this is why the state has
grown so large and why efforts to cut it down are so feeble. And this is what the
demand for performance is about.69
68
In Queensland, statutory authorities were expected to be self-funding: Queensland Government, Queensland QUASGOS: The
role of statutory authorities in State Development, 1986, p. 6.
69
OECD 2002, p. 45.
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22
With limited voice and virtually no power of exit when it comes to compliance with a purely
regulatory function, this is what some frustration with red tape as experienced by the citizen
turned customer, is about. It can redefine government performance as red tape rather than
regulation.
The review’s online survey of chief executive officers and board members conducted in
September 2008 reported several criticisms held by members and CEOs of government
bodies for the ‘red tape’ of, or ‘poor’ even ‘uncooperative’ and ‘rude’ performance by,
government departments. In contrast, other departments were praised for their ‘excellent’
cooperation and many respondents countered that in their experience red tape was
‘important’, ‘necessary’ and ‘not a problem’.
Of 509 identified board member responses, 204 (40%) provided negative comments on red
tape. Of the additional 68 identified CEO responses, 24 (35%) reported red tape. Their
concerns of red tape ranged from –
 ‘reporting obligations to the government shareholder are a major burden’ (CEO);
 significant delays in recruiting and then appointing to member vacancies of up to
eight months or more in filling of member vacancies (CEO) (many members);70
 significant backlog of payments owing to members (‘amounts involved total in excess
of $7000’) (CEO);
 ‘consumes a great deal of time and effort that could be spent elsewhere’ (member);
 ‘governance of committee and reporting lines are not clear. It is hard to know
relationship of one committee or board to another and there seems to be duplication
of roles’ (member);
 ‘poor delayed communications’ (member);
 Required production of management plans and reporting beyond the resources of
small organisation (member);
 Red tape? ‘Incredible. Ridiculous department enforced timelines that are then in turn
needlessly held up at a Ministerial level. Often for several months’ (member);
 ‘conflict of interest between EPA [Environment Protection Agency] and DPI&F
[Department of Primary Industries and Forestry]’ (member);
 ‘THE OVERALL INERTIA HAS ASTOUNDED ME’, and another member complained red tape
was ‘over the moon’ (members);
 ‘some requirements are relatively straight forward whilst others can be considerably
onerous and time consuming. The difficulty is knowing how relevant the really
detailed red tape is. Is it that way because it is necessary or is it simply the work of
a government employee who might come from another government area who is
justifying their existence by producing convoluted complex reporting requirements?
Those people are not proactive toward harmonious working relationships with
responsible companies and people and they damage a lot of the productive work that
comes from the departments who are working positively and directly with industry’
(CEO).
Parliament of South Australia, Statutory Authorities Review Committee, Survey of South Australian Statutory Authorities,
(Eighth Report) 1995-96, p. 54: recommended that mechanisms should be established to monitor vacancies which exist for a
period greater than six months.
70
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23
The survey revealed that most respondents regarded red tape as being imposed on them
rather than the by-product of their own body’s activities. There were two distinctly different
classes of experience: the ‘unduly burdensome’ versus the ‘not an issue’ because it was
important and necessary (understandable). There was also a significant coincidence
between those who found red tape burdensome and unnecessary with a poor regard or
relationship expressed for the department concerned. There is insufficient data to indicate
which occurred first: the red tape or poor regard for the department.
Regardless, apart from the impact of any putative benefit from process review or enhanced
communication of processes and reasons and a sharing of mutual expectations that might
improve future experiences, the data at least can be said to highlight the personalisation of
the red tape experience and the influence of the interpersonal transaction in coping with red
tape difficulties.
This review has also noted anecdotally from public contributions received to date that the
red tape meter is very sensitive to the behaviour and actions of the employee of the nondepartmental body and departments. To the citizen/customer they are both the public
service. A rude, uncooperative, disinterested, unknowledgeable, or simply duty-statementonly employee handling the citizen/customer’s matter quickly pushes the red tape meter into
the red zone. Red tape is not just about systems, structures and processes; the citizen
turned customer expects customer service with all its contemporary trimmings that offer
proactivity and an outcomes focus.
The red tape experience in issue for this review must consider both that experienced by nondepartmental bodies as well as that experienced by the public in its dealings with nondepartmental bodies. Possible treatments are common to both risks.
Reduction of red tape includes organisational capability expert in managing positively the
interpersonal dimension involved in helping to smooth the wrinkles that arise in
implementation of policy and legislation. At its simplest, the citizen or customer experience
of the public service reflects on: did it work? with a minimum of fuss? was it quick? helpful?
was it value for money? was it easy (intuitive process, communication, integrated,
accessible), was it coordinated and ‘professional’? The factor of staff influence in those
conclusions is high.
In 2006, the Council of Australian Governments identified regulatory reform as a key priority
committing to the reduction of the regulatory burden imposed by the three levels of
government, and avoidance of unnecessary compliance costs (many of which are ‘off budget’
– for business, community and government).
Queensland has an Office of Regulatory Efficiency (QORE) which is responsible for leading
the development and implementation of the Smart Regulation reform agenda, working at
national (via COAG) and state levels.
Under the State reform agenda, QORE is investigating strategies aimed at–
 reducing the existing stock of regulation in Queensland through a phased program of
reviews;
 increasing the quality of new regulation by streamlining and integrating existing
impact assessment processes; and
 improving the quality of the business/government interface.71
71
Queensland Office of Regulatory Efficiency, 10 October 2008.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 4
24
Separately, a review of internal and external governance would support the guiding principle
that the exercise of public power such as the imposition of process on a citizen must be
limited and must be justified. Process should have, and be seen to have, merit or value.
Legislative and administrative requirements imposed on both the public and the public
service should be efficient and effective in achieving the desired purpose. Review of
regulatory quality and bureaucratic processes should be integrated in contemporary
management practices such as in regular review of performance and outcomes and
continuous improvement to achieve economy, efficiency and effectiveness in a whole-ofbusiness sense.
Integration of ‘red tape alert’ in existing and ongoing business processes is key to not
imposing more red tape in the quest to reduce red tape.
Governance arrangements should also manage risk and accommodate capacity and flexibility
for common sense business discretion focused on outcomes whilst assuring regulatory
integrity in the public interest.
4.2
Governance
Is it possible to reconcile a service-providing, agency-structured government with a
strong, effective state? The answer is ‘yes’, but doing so requires a shift in focus
from agencies to departments and ministries. The key question should be not
whether agencies have freedom to operate efficiently, but whether departments have
incentives and opportunity to effectively guide the agencies responsible to them and
to oversee their performance.72
Governance concerns the structure, systems and processes in place to direct and manage an
organisation.
There is ‘good governance’ when governments and their organisations:
 act legitimately: so that public organisations comply with the requirements of the law
and act within the authority conferred on them;
 observe due process in all their activities and respect the rights and aspirations of
citizens and other stakeholders;
 meet publicly-declared standards of performance particularly of economy in the use
of public resources, the supply of agreed outputs, and achievement of desired
economic, social and environmental outcomes; and
 account to citizens and other stakeholders for their actions in terms of these criteria
of legitimacy and standards of performance.73
Common principles underpinning these elements of good public sector governance include:
accountability (both internal and external), transparency/openness and recognition of
stakeholder rights (or responsiveness), integrity (measured by the extent to which public
officials carry out their duties according to the law and without self-interest or favouritism),
efficiency, stewardship, leadership, an emphasis on performance as well as compliance,
stakeholder participation and inclusiveness.74
72
OECD 2002, p. 47.
OECD 2002, p. 269.
74
Edwards, M. and Clough, R., ‘Corporate Governance and Performance’, Issues Paper No. 1 (as part of Australian Research
Council Project: Corporate Governance in the Public Sector: An Evaluation of its Tensions, Gaps and Potential), University of
Canberra, 2005, p. 4;(hereinafter referenced as Edwards and Clough 2005); and OECD 2002, p. 269.
73
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Tensions arise as principles, roles and interests can compete in challenging the right
balance… tensions are created between those who govern and those who manage and role
conflicts will come into play – especially in the public sector, when participants wear
more than one hat… a key to success in balancing these tensions is clarity around role,
responsibilities and expectations. Essential to managing tensions well is to establish and
maintain good relationships [described as an element of ‘soft’ governance].75
4.2.1
Risk
What are the main areas of risk in the governance of statutory authorities and other nondepartmental bodies? This analysis will assist not only core governance principles aiming for
economy, efficiency, responsiveness and accountability that are central to this review, but
will inform better decision-making on appropriate organisational form and proportionate
governance requirements.
External governance design and capability
The significant risks arise from:
(1) ad hoc development of agencies without proper regard to central mechanisms for
direction and control if governments lose control of their revenue sources or permit some categories of
organisational expenditure to become entrenched then they lose the ability to reprioritise their spending across the whole public sector or to control total
demands of the public sector on the economy.
 Ministers may be ill-equipped to exercise their functions.
(2) failure to apply appropriate general management regimes uniformly to agencies,
where these are required to protect the government’s general interest in public sector
finance, employment or codes of behaviour.
(3) excessive spans of control and/or inadequate capability of central Ministries charged
with direction and control of agencies.
Internal governance and capability
(1) poorly constituted top level organisational governance the form of top-level governance is inappropriate for direction and control – there
will be problems of fit if, for example, formal responsibility for governance is
vested in a board but the actual policy-related steering of the organisation
requires frequent intervention by a supervising Ministry; these problems can arise
if there is a high degree of policy risk in the operations of the organisation, or its
activities require extensive central coordination with those of other organisations;
in these cases a departmental form with its opportunities for direct control by a
Minister may be preferable to a public law authority.
 unclear definition of roles – the risk will be increased if there is ambiguity about
the political accountability of the organisation and particularly about its policy
responsibilities [see also section 4.3 at pp. 33-41].
 there are inappropriate criteria for top-level governance appointments.
(2) problems of ongoing agency direction and control defining agency objectives in terms of outputs or outcomes, and appropriate
specification of results (measures which are representative, comprehensive and
reasonable in number and avoid a wrong focus, misrepresentation or gaming).
75
Edwards and Clough 2005, pp. 4, 12.
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26
(3) management capability in agencies.76
4.2.2
Hard and soft attributes of governance
Private sector board research indicates that the ‘hard’ attributes of governance are
necessary, but not sufficient: ‘At best, they form minimal standards of good governance.
More accurately, it is the interplay of these ‘hard’ but easy to measure attributes and ‘soft’
attributes that lead to good governance.’77
Some of the ‘soft’ governance factors that appear to be important for performance in the
private sector include
A clarity in roles, responsibilities, and relationships between: CEO and chair;
directors and management; directors and shareholders/stakeholders.

Healthy chair/CEO interface.

Directors working as a team.

Culture, trust and open dissent.

Right skills, competencies and characteristics, including ‘industry/business
knowledge’.

A good induction process and ongoing access to training.

Leadership skills of chair.

Information flows.

Regular evaluation of board performance.78
The following is a useful list of early warning signs of bad board behaviours evident of poor
relationships or lack of adequate communication flows
A dominant chair or CEO.

Hurried decisions based on inadequate data.

Serial restructuring and resignations of key executives.

The cover up.

Interfering with the flow of information.

Communications which are on the defensive.

Significant variance between forecasted and final accounts.

Where no one accepts responsibility.79
The 2003 HIH Royal Commission reportedSystems and structure can provide an environment conducive to good corporate
governance practices, but at the end of the day, it is the acts or omissions of the people
charged with relevant responsibilities that will determine whether governance objectives
are in fact achieved. For example, the identification of the background, skills and
expertise of the people who walk into the board room is a good start, but it is what they
do when they get there that is critical.80
Although this research is sourced principally to the private sector, it holds relevance for the
public sector at least where boards have been chosen as the governance model and it
follows that adherence to corporate governance practices would be expected.
76
Laking 2002, pp. 13-17. (This risk profile has been drawn from Laking’s extensive work, distinguished by his involvement
with the OECD 2002 study.
77
Edwards and Clough 2005, p. 14.
78
Edwards and Clough 2005, p. 12; see also similar ‘informal elements’ that Laking includes in institutional risk analysis at
Laking 2002, p. 13.
79
Edwards and Clough 2005, p. 14.
80
HIH Royal Commission, 2003 (Vol. 1, Part 3: 105), emphasis added and quoted by Edwards and Clough 2005, p. 12.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 4
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4.2.3
The high performing board
A high performing board will play a strategic roleIt will plan for the future, keep pace with changes in the external environment, nurture
and build key external relationships (for example business contacts) and be alert to
opportunities to further the business. The focus on performance as well as conformance.
The board is not there to simply monitor and protect but also to enable and enhance.81
Conversely, the board is not there to just consider strategic direction it must accept
responsibility for conformance and ensure that good corporate governance occurs: it is not
enough to regard that requirement as just a CEO responsibility.
In Uhrig’s review, a board established without adequate power posed a risk to the board’s
task of effective oversight of the performance of management… it may seek to define a role for itself other than one of governance. This is sometimes
achieved by utilising its collective knowledge and expertise in a particular field, in a
manner similar to a consultancy service, and engaging in issues of management rather
than focusing on ensuring the organisation is striving for high performance.
Alternatively, a board seeking to identify a role for itself may adopt an entrepreneurial
approach and seek to establish new areas of activity for the statutory authority outside
the parameters of its delegation or the expectations of government.82
Or, without adequate power the board will… often become captured, and tend to become an ally of the CEO, rather than an
objective critic and fail to provide governance. Management may use a board to obtain
agreement for activities that may not otherwise be agreed by the Minister and then use
the justification of ‘board approved’ to explain why actions are occurring.83
In this scenario, the board will not be effective in holding management accountable.
The special role of chair of the board also brings a critical bearing to the effectiveness of a
board’s governance. Uhrig reported that where a CEO establishes a regular contact with the
Minister, the ‘relationship between the Minister and the chairman becomes superfluous’.84
AlsoUhrig reinforces the significant (and expanding) role of the chair, so much under the
spotlight since Justice Austin’s decision in ASIC v Rich and the comments of Justice Owen
in the HIH Royal Commission Report [in 2003]. In the government context, Uhrig
recommends that communications between the Minister and the CEO should only occur
in conjunction with the chair, in order to maintain the board’s ability to provide effective
management oversight. Additionally, in line with Justice Owen’s comments in the HIH
Report, Uhrig recommends that the chair take an active role in reviewing individual
directors’ performance and in briefing the Minister about the appointment and
termination of directors.85
81
Edwards and Clough 2005, p. 5.
Uhrig 2003, p. 66.
83
Uhrig 2003, p. 66.
84
Uhrig 2003, p. 66.
85
Kalokerinos J., ‘Corporate governance in statutory authorities: the Uhrig Review’, Keeping Good Companies, Vol. 56, No. 10,
Nov 2004, p. 612.
82
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4.2.4
Corporate governance vs public sector governance
A central recommendation in Uhrig’s review was that ‘governance boards should be utilised
in statutory authorities only where they can be given the full power to act like a board of a
publicly listed company (appoint and remove CEO, appoint the chairman and new directors,
finalise and approve strategy, define the values and culture, say ‘no’ to management and
give final approval to the sale and purchase of significant assets – ‘when these powers are
diluted or modified, a board of directors is rendered useless’). Uhrig claimed that ‘with a few
notable exceptions, boards in statutory authorities are likely to be an unnecessary layer in
the accountability framework’.
Where it is not feasible for the Minister and/or Parliament to delegate the full power to
act, a governance board is not practical. This is particularly the case in those authorities
where Ministers play a key governance role through the determination of policy and
strategy. In these statutory authorities the issues to be addressed are limited to the
efficient and effective performance of the activities specified through legislative
parameters. This is essentially a management-oriented task. The optimum governance
structure for most non-commercial authorities is that of an executive management that
reports directly to the responsible Minister. The executive management structure may be
headed by either one or more commissioners or a CEO. An executive management
structure provides a direct line of communication between the Minister and those
performing legislated functions, and the clearest and most direct line of accountability to
the Minister.86
But as various commentary has noted,87 it should not be assumed that the private sector has
more to teach the public sector on governance than vice versa. Indeed, dramatic events and
case studies in recent world markets assist in challenging this presumption as being far from
any immutable truth.
Corporate governance, it has been said, takes much of its conceptual apparatus from
constitutional law and political science.88 In the pursuit of similar governance objectives
however, different constitutional, legislative and environmental considerations steer
variances in the respective practice, and results, for corporate governance and public sector
governance.
The private sector has no equivalent of parliament as an institution of public
accountability nor are private sector companies subject to continuous public scrutiny
from a political opposition competing for public support as an alternative management
team. Though the private sector focus on profitability is a powerful instrument of
accountability, the range of activities for which private sector managers are held publicly
accountable is considerably narrower than that which applies to politicians or senior
public servants. In the public sector, the absence of a clear ‘bottom line’ is more than
adequately made up for by a greater variety of accountability mechanisms applied at
more points in the decision-making process.89
86
Uhrig 2003, p. 67.
For example, Miller, R. and Sanders, K., ‘Implementing the Uhrig templates: a time to pause and get it right’, Keeping Good
Companies, Vol. No. 7, August 2006, pp. 426-428.
88
Mulgan, R., ‘Comparing accountability in the public and private sectors’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 59,
No. 1, March 2000, p. 91.
89
Mulgan, R., ‘Comparing accountability in the public and private sectors’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 59,
No. 1, March 2000, pp. 94-95.
87
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The governance challenge in the public sector is more difficult because power, as a matter of
law, is widely distributed. So would Uhrig’s recommendation, abandoning the board model
of governance unless full power was delegated, address the concerns?
The tendency to seek to reduce that complexity by removing boards substitutes a new
level of governance complexity, not dissimilar to that which applies in relation to
secretaries [Commonwealth equivalent of Queensland’s directors-general]. For instance,
if, instead of a board governing a statutory authority all authority is vested in a statutory
office holder appointed by and responsible to the portfolio minister, is power better
delegated, more effectively limited and will it be better exercised? What is the role of the
portfolio secretary [director-general]; where do his or her powers, authority and duty
start and finish in these circumstances?90
Of direct relevance to all board members (and other office holders) is the vexed issue of
competing interests. The general legal position is that office-holders must act in the best
interests of the organisation. This is why ‘those elected to office as members of a collective
decision-making body (e.g. staff members elected by university staff to membership to
university councils) need to be aware of the distinction between the basis of their election by
a particular constituency, and the basis of their obligations as an office-holder to the
organisation as a whole’.91
Uhrig’s report was concerned about managing conflicts of interests for members of public
sector boards who have been appointed as representative of stakeholders …while these types of appointments are appropriate for advisory boards, for governance
boards they fail to produce independent, critical and objective thinking. Representational
boards do not provide the best form of governance for an authority due to the potential
for directors to be primarily concerned with the interests of those they represent, rather
than the success of the entity they are responsible for governing.92
Uhrig went so far as to say that representational appointments had the potential to place the
success of the entity at risk. 93
Welcome Aboard, the Queensland Government’s guide for members of boards, committees
and statutory authorities highlights common law duties of directors and expressly, for
members of companies incorporated under the Corporations Act 2001, that there is a civil
obligation imposed by the Corporations Act 2001 (s. 181) to uphold a duty to act in good
faith, in the best interests of the corporation and for a proper purpose.
For example, use by the directors of their powers to benefit sectional interests, rather
than the corporation as a whole, or to benefit some third party or their own interests will
be considered to be a breach of this duty, as such a use of power is not for the
promotion of the proper purposes of the corporation.
…
Miller, R. and Sanders, K., ‘Implementing the Uhrig templates: a time to pause and get it right’, Keeping Good Companies,
Vol. No. 7, August 2006, p. 28.
91
Halligan, J. and Horrigan, J., ‘Reforming Corporate Governance in the Australian Federal Public Sector: From Uhrig to
Implementation’, Issues Paper Series No.2 (as part of Australian Research Council Project: Corporate Governance in the Public
Sector: An Evaluation of its Tensions, Gaps and Potential), University of Canberra, 2005, p.18.
92
Uhrig 2003, p. 43.
93
Uhrig 2003, p. 12.
90
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Breach of statutory duties draws penalties under the Corporations Act 2001 which range
up to $220,000. Under both the common law and the Corporations Act 2001, officers
may also be required to pay compensation or to account for profits. In some cases
directors may also be disqualified from office.94
The various expert authorities95 on good governance would contend that although there are
common elements underlying the good governance model, the challenge is in adapting
principles and practices to maximise achievement of desired outcomes. Importantly, in
addition to the suitably crafted model, key factors in success are clarity and transparency for
the model and the various roles and responsibilities thereunder. And, as governance is a
dynamic and therefore evolving force mechanisms for ongoing review and evaluation are
essential.
There is no single model of corporate governance i.e. the ‘one size fits all’ approach has
been rejected by the OECD which instead advocates the need for pluralism, flexibility and
adaptability in corporate governance.96
4.2.5
The public interest
Of great significance to public sector governance is a shared understanding of the role of the
‘public interest’ for members and officeholders of public entities. Academic and legal
commentary generally avoids providing a definitive script to resolve the tensions between
the interests of the body and what are seen as potentially competing elements of the public
interest.
In the private sector the central issue is the need for shareholders/owners to be
confident that an organisation is being managed responsibly, in accordance with
shareholder interests. In the public sector the central issue is the need for citizens to be
confident that the policies of elected governments, services delivered and conduct by
public officials are aligned with the public interest.
The rights of the public (including individuals, businesses, industries, families and/or
communities) and value for money rather than shareholder interests and profits are
paramount in the delivery of public services.97
Directors of companies that are created under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) are provided
with a ‘safe harbour from personal liability in relation to honest and informed and rational
business judgments’ (s.180). ‘Business judgment’ means any decision relating to the
business operations of a corporation (s.180(3)). The focus is on decision-making process
rather than whether the right decision in hindsight was made. Adequacy of board minutes
and supporting papers and other supporting decision-making activities come into play to
support the safe harbour protection for the directors of companies under the Corporations
Act 2001.
Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Welcome Aboard: A Guide for Members of Queensland Government Boards,
Committees and Statutory Authorities, July 2002, section 7.8.
94
95
ASX Corporate Governance Council (2007), Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations (2nd ed.); Standards
Australia (2003), Good Governance Principles, Australian Standard 8000-2003; OECD (2004) Principles of Corporate
Governance; Australian National Audit Office (2003) Principles of Public Sector Governance. The corporate governance model
for Queensland SPV’s is based on the ASX Principles and AS8000-2003: Department of Infrastructure and Planning Government
Framework for Infrastructure Delivery Special Purpose Vehicles
96
Standards Australia (2003), Good Governance Principles, Australian Standard 8000-2003, p. 9.
97
White, D., ‘Acting in the public interest’, Keeping Good Companies, Vol. 60, No. 7, August 2008, p. 401 (hereinafter
referenced as White 2008).
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The business judgment rule does not apply for State statutory authorities and other bodies
that are not subject to the Corporations Act 2001 which might suggest a stricter standard for
directors of government boards except many do not carry out ‘business functions’ in the
same way that corporations do, and the business judgment rule may, in fact, be inconsistent
with the nature of a board being publicly owned and possibly subject to ministerial direction.
If government wished a business judgment rule to operate then it would need to create the
accordant company structure under the Corporations Law.98
Risk taking tolerances are seen as higher in the private sector, provided profits are
maintained and improved.99
Not acting in the public interest is a strategic risk for public sector governance.
Research has identified that there is little guidance on a risk-control based approach to
decision-making to enable agencies to assess costs, benefits and risks of adopting various
governance principles and practices and there are few links between adoption of governance
standards and due diligence protection of elected and public officials when performance
issues arise.100
Inherent behavioural risks that compromise acting in the public interest are copied in Table
4.1.
98
Bini, M., ‘The Public Administration Act 2004 (Vic): A new approach to the liability and duties of directors on government
boards and authorities’, Company and Securities Law Journal, Vol. 26, 2008, p. 180.
99
White 2008, p. 401.
100
White 2008, p. 403.
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32
Inherent Behavioural Risks to the Public Interest101
Compromise/
capitulation
Reneging
Meddling/
opportunism
Creaming or
creative compliance
Short-termism
Blaming
Bias
Clientelism/vote
buying/patronage
Cronyism/
pliability


Manipulation
Symbolism/
monument
syndrome
Table 4.1
The dilution of effective policies and processes due to the need to accommodate those
stakeholders with significant influence over decision-making approval and/or
implementation
Changes to promised binding policy because of funding, implementation and other
issues which may not become apparent until after a government is elected because of
improved knowledge
Issues which become the focus of media attention and which may result in decisions
being made that solve the issue but may create inconsistencies in policies/public
interest
Pressure to perform leads to finding the easiest way possible to meet performance
targets even if the actions do not achieve the desired outcomes for government policy.
An example is treating those with less complex needs or greater capability rather than
those most in need in order to demonstrate results
The dominance of the electoral cycle in which politicians need to demonstrate success
in a limited time or public servants need to demonstrate results within the confines of
budgets or lifespan of their programs or employment contracts
A range of dysfunctional behaviours can occur if elected officials take the credit for
success and public officials take the blame for performance issues or vice versa.
Examples are risk averse behaviours which may compromise innovation and
responsiveness.
Having to make decisions based on adherence to ideology regardless of benefits, costs
and risk or undue influence of individuals, lobbyists and vested interest groups.
Pressures to seek electoral advantage by rewarding client/regional/group loyalty
through targeted spending, concessions and other benefits
Pressures to appoint individuals/support organisations who:
Are more easily manipulated to provide directions and solutions that elected
governments want to hear or implement
Have influence but are not necessarily competent or who may be less likely to cause
embarrassment
These behaviours may also occur in agencies with responsibilities for reviewing/scrutiny
including committees, anti-corruption bodies, regulators and inspection agencies. The
result is the subtle conversion of the supposed ‘objective’ reviewer into a lapdog.
Being required to consult with and/or engage stakeholders to explore possible
directions without a real underlying intent to make major changes in policy position
Being required to construct or develop a unique asset or program to create a
recognised symbol of achievement, which goes beyond demand needs, may have been
able to be achieved at a lower cost without the bells and whistles or is not in the longterm public interest
These risks are relevant in reviewing the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of
government bodies (as much as they would be for government departments). A hidden
collective set of dysfunctional behaviours – or ‘undiscussables’ – may create mediocrity and
underperformance-102
Ticking boxes against prescriptive governance standards is of little value. The public has
a right to know that the right environment has been created to motivate and sustain
acting in the public interest with any residual risks after controls disclosed.103
101
102
103
White 2008, pp. 401-402 (references omitted).
White 2008, p. 402.
White 2008, p. 406.
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33
4.3
Independence and ministerial responsibility
..the ‘hands off’ aura surrounding statutory authorities, which arises from the need
for operational independence, means that the boundaries of the relationships
between statutory authorities, Minister and portfolio departments are not clear to
the participants.104
Ministerial responsibility requires that ministers take collective responsibility for the activities
of their portfolio. In Queensland, unlike most other Westminster system jurisdictions,
collective ministerial responsibility is more than a convention. The Queensland Constitution
requires it.105
However, the principle of vicarious responsibility where ministers should resign for matters
beyond their immediate control or knowledge, has never been part of the conventions of
ministerial responsibility in any Westminster jurisdiction: ‘it survives only as popular
mythology, kept alive by opportunistic politicians and ignorant commentators’.106 The
practice of ministerial responsibility concerns whether the minister has ensured that
reasonable administrative arrangements are in place and whether the minister reacts
promptly and well (in accepting collective responsibility) when an issue arises.
There is a corresponding element of political control required for the minister to serve that
accountability.
The Queensland Cabinet Handbook notesCabinet collectively, and Ministers individually, are responsible and accountable to the
Crown, the Parliament, and ultimately the electorate… It is the policy of the Government
to enhance Ministerial responsibility and accountability consistent with its collective
commitments.107
The Queensland Government’s guide for members of Queensland government boards,
committees and statutory authorities, Welcome Aboard, says on the role of ministers-
Ministers are responsible to Parliament for the operation of all Government Boards and
agencies within their portfolios. They have the authority either directly to make
appointments to Government Boards, or indirectly to recommend appointments to
Cabinet or the Governor in Council. The authority of a Minister to give directions to a
Board is spelled out in the enabling legislation, if any.108
By definition, statutory authorities are creatures of Parliament and their enabling (and
governing) legislation can set limits on the extent of their autonomy, and limits on the role or
powers of the minister. If the statutory authority is in the form of a corporate style board,
then the more legislative (or perceived) control the minister has the greater is the likelihood
that tensions between roles and responsibilities will arise. If the government body is not a
statutory authority, transparency and clarity of respective roles and responsibilities are still
paramount – and need a non-legislative form - in seeking to manage the relationship and the
steering of outcomes.
104
105
Uhrig 2003, p. 53.
Constitution of Queensland Act 2001, s. 42.
Mulgan, R., ‘Accountability in a contemporary public sector’, Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government Discussion
Paper 05-17, The Australian National University, Canberra, 2005, p. 3.
107
Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Queensland Cabinet Handbook, sections. 2.0-2.1.2 (emphasis added).
108
Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Welcome Aboard: A Guide for Members of Queensland Government Boards,
Committees and Statutory Authorities, July 2002, sections 3.0-3.3 at 3.1.
106
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However, whatever the formulation prescribing the respective roles and powers of the
minister and government body, there remains an unavoidable political reality: a public
bottom line that expects ‘the government’ to be accountable for expenditure of public funds;
exercise of public power and authority; and ultimately, for meeting the needs of the
electorate who also happen to be customers of statutory authorities and other public bodies.
The minister’s capacity to use organisational form as a ‘shield’ in limiting ministerial
responsibility beggars public acceptance. There is also a political incentive for the minister’s
‘need to know’ and to influence government bodies which puts a minister at risk of criticisms
of ‘undue interference’ and conflict with bodies.
… the loss in accountability has been less than the pure theory of institutional separation
might suggest. The overriding cause has been the reluctance of the public to allow
ministers to decline responsibility for mistakes occurring in their portfolios, regardless of
whether or not the ministers have a direct institutional responsibility.. Ministers who try
to pass the buck when prisoners escape from private prisons or when job-seekers are
rejected by publicly funded employment agencies or when lives are lost on corporatised
public railways are pilloried in the media and parliament. The traditional expectations of
ministerial responsibility – that, in times of crisis, ministers will front up, take charge and
impose remedies – run very deep. The public are not prepared to accept a devolution of
accountability for administrative error away from ministers to other agencies public or
private contractors. Nor will they readily accept diminished access for their review
agents such as Ombudsmen and Auditors-General.
In practice, then – in the interests of political survival – politicians and their advisers
have drawn back from the theory of institutional separation and its attendant rhetoric of
clarified responsibilities and accountabilities.109
And,
… the electors still believe that the minister should account for the delivery of
government-funded services, even if they are actually provided by an agent. Smaller
government of a different shape will not reduce the demands for good service, nor
should they. The logic is one of efficiency, not a reduction in accountability.110
In my view the community’s expectation of appropriate governance and accountability is
the same for all public sector entities, regardless of their size or type.111
The OECD study on distributed public governance summarised the international experience
of political risks to the minister, and government, broadlyGovernments may simply ‘lose control’ of their agencies. Creating an agency can create
a constituency for that agency which is politically difficult to reverse. When governments
attempt to re-assert control over agencies, the most vocal opponents may well be the
agencies themselves. In countries such as Germany and the Netherlands ‘there is
suspicion that some agencies function outside of political debate, and are run largely on
‘auto-pilot’ with little control and influence by their parent ministries.’ In New Zealand,
there have been concerns about ‘unresponsiveness or disregard by Crown entities of
Mulgan, R. and Uhr, J., ‘Accountability and governance’ in G. Davis and P. Weller eds Are You Being Served? Allen & Unwin,
Sydney, 2001, pp. 168-169 (references omitted); also Mulgan, R., ‘Accountability in a contemporary public sector’, Asia Pacific
School of Economics and Government Discussion Paper 05-17, The Australian National University, Canberra, 2005, p. 14: even
for contracting out, public will not tolerate government blame-shifting.
110
Weller, P., ‘The summit of their discontents: crisis or mere transition?’ in G. Davis and P. Weller eds Are You Being Served?
Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2001, p. 200.
111
Auditor- General of Queensland, Report no. 4 for 2005: Results of Audits completed at 31 October 2005, p. 44: concerning
the ‘proliferation’ of public sector companies.
109
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35
government policies’. [OECD study was prior to New Zealand’s Crown Entities reform two years
later in 2004]
If governments lose the capacity to direct or control their agencies they may be exposed
to significant political risk. The risks can arise from inability to align the policy priorities
of the organisation with overall government priorities. Priorities can be locked in by the
creation of an agency: ‘…institutions are prone to survive even if a priority has long been
met or is no longer a priority.’ Agencies ‘might allocate public money for purposes
different from those intended by government and parliament’ or; adopt quasi-fiscal
activities that stretch beyond the original policy intention of government.’ Public
agencies may ‘undermine policy objectives by creating constituencies that will compel
governments to maintain existing policies’. Problems of policy direction and efficient
implementation may be compounded by incoherent and prolific development of agencies,
leading to fragmentation (and coordination problems), duplication and overlaps of
functions.112
The recent announcement by the Premier of New South Wales that that State’s five and a
half year old RailCorp will no longer be a company but become a statutory authority instead
provides a dramatic example of where the tolerance threshold for political risk was
exceeded. The New South Wales Premier claimed ‘it was about returning accountability for
the service to the government and the Transport Minister and therefore improving service
delivery.’113
… the old state-owned corporation structure, with the treasurer and transport minister
involved in the RailCorp board, was a ‘recipe for paralysis’.114
… RailCorp is unwieldy as a company. The operation should be directly answerable to
the Premier and the Transport Minister … rather than to a board.115
The people who get the train to and from work each day want them to be cleaner and
more reliable – that’s what they’re telling me and this is the first step in delivering the
changes needed to improve rail services … My Government will take responsibility when
things don’t work as they should – but I insist in taking control along with responsibility.
For too long RailCorp has been a law unto itself.116 (emphasis added)
Also recently, ministerial responsibility responded with increased government control in
Queensland, albeit on a less grand scale. Queensland Rail’s corporate entertainment and
hospitality expenditure will be subject to new limits with government policies and guidelines
for government owned corporations. Reportedly, Queensland Rail’s management ‘expressed
difficulty balancing the public’s interest in having a strong rail provider in a competitive
market and limiting spending of taxpayer funds’. The news report continued that the
Transport Minister ‘was not sympathetic, saying the corporation’s culture had to change’. 117
112
Laking 2002, pp. 9-10.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 October 2008, p. 4.
114
The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 October 2008, p. 4.
115
The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 October 2008, p. 4.
116
The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 October 2008, p. 4.
113
117
ABC News, 24/10/08 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/15/2391371.htm>; and quote from
<www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/govt-caps-entertainment-spend> accessed on 24/10/08.
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The scope of this review does not include GOCs,118 like RailCorp or Queensland Rail, but it
does include government companies and board structures that take that ‘market-style’
organisational form. Regardless, these recent examples and the public responses made by
the Premiers and responsible Ministers underscore the ministerial sensitivities and tensions in
the control versus responsibility prism in contemporary Australian politics and public
administration.
Inherent in the pronouncements by the New South Wales Premier is the assumption that a
statutory authority is an organisational form that accommodates direct ministerial control
(and therefore better supports ministerial responsibility). Separate to newspaper editorial
chiding, ‘that may sound plausible until you remember how miserably direct ministerial
responsibility works for hospitals, schools, roads and other basic services’119 which is part of
a broader debate, the substance of the governance arrangements of the statutory authority
as a vehicle for enhanced ministerial responsibility is key. When is a ‘board’ (of a statutory
authority), not a board (that troubles the minister’s control)? Should a statutory authority
have a board?
Uhrig’s Commonwealth review recommended that there should only be ‘executive
management’ governance of bodies (reporting directly to the responsible minister) if the
government is not prepared to devolve full power to act to a board.120
‘Hard data’ studies which examine the effects of boards in terms of outcomes challenge the
conventional wisdom that the superior board is composed mostly of non-executive outsiders
who are independent of executive management. Contrary to agency theory, there is even
some evidence that company performance may benefit from boards of mostly executive
members.
… the whole rationale for having a board becomes suspect. The company may just as
well have a monthly committee meeting of its senior managers. Since the company may
have one of these already having a board composed of executives is just a duplication.
Thus, there may be no point in having a board of directors. Abolishing the board would
economise on time and effort presently wasted by executive management putting on the
monthly ritual.121
In the final analysis, there are of course the other key perspectives to consider in the
relationship’s imperatives: the board directors and chair, and portfolio departmental chief
executives.
4.3.1
The board’s perspective
Like government ministers and the public, the chair and board members have interests at
stake too such as their legislative responsibilities, directorial duties and liabilities, even
reputations. Governance design should seek to align legislative responsibilities of the board
with the role and control that the minister is to take. Clarity and transparency of governance
structures and roles will help navigate any tensions arising. On a whole of government
Under the Government Owned Corporations Act 1993 (Qld).
The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 October 2008, p. 14.
120
Uhrig 2003, pp. 12, 41-44.
121
Donaldson, L. and Davis, J., ‘Boards and company performance – research challenges the conventional wisdom’, Corporate
Governance: An International Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1994, pp. 151-152, 155; and recently Nicolson, G.J. and Kiel, G. C., ‘Board
Composition and Corporate Performance: How the Australian Experience Informs Contrasting Theories of Corporate
Governance’, Corporate Governance: An International Review 11(3), 2003, pp. 189-205, accessed <http://eprints.qut.edu.au>
118
119
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37
scale, consistency of structure and roles across like functional bodies will also help manage
potential confusion.
Unmanaged by unclear boundaries across different organisational forms, there is potential
for a director’s common law (or for companies, statutory) duties to be challenged risking
directorial liability. For example, section 181 of the Corporations Act 2001 imposes a civil
obligation on directors, secretaries and other officers of a corporation to exercise their
powers and discharge their duties in good faith, in the best interests of the corporation and
for a proper purpose (emphasis added). Academic commentaries debate whether the best
interests of the corporation is synonymous with the interests directed, or influences made,
by the minister, and moreover with the public interest for which the minister is essentially
custodian in this sense particularly in the absence of any express direction.
Directors’ reputations may be put at risk where ministerial involvement or ‘interference’122 is
seen to compromise their independence and integrity as board members. Traditionally, the
remedy for board members who are not able to steer a satisfactory course through the
conflict is to resign (or maintain one’s contrary view and be ‘sacked’, eventually).
From a government perspective, the literature, other government reviews and anecdotal
evidence indicate a wider incidence than the ‘one off’ scenario where the ministerial and
board roles come into tension. This makes the traditional options to reconcile entrenched
views unsustainable for government in a competitive marketplace for competent members,
particularly where government incentive to become a member for most bodies relies more
on an honourable and patient sense of community service than competitive or proximate
remuneration.123
Some academic analysis suggests that due diligence principles premised on a ‘sound
behavioural risk-control based approach’ would protect the reputations of those acting in the
public interest and provide ‘safe harbour’ protection similar to the business judgment rule in
the private sector’.124 At the superficial level at least, this suggestion may not be transported
to guide the independence versus ministerial responsibility conflict onto clearer tracks
because it relies on the members acting in the ‘public interest’. In a parliamentary
democracy, the ‘public interest’ in the first instance would be determined by the accountable
government minister and not an independent board member, so the relief fails for circuity. A
deeper analysis might support a defence of due diligence in circumstances where a
reasonable board member charged with obligations of independence can distinguish between
dysfunctional behavioural risks (such as bias or patronage) and a difference of opinion in
interpreting the public interest orientation or meaning for application of the substance of the
body’s charter. In the former, the independent board member’s judgment should prevail, in
the latter, it should be that for the minister. The experience of government board members,
their challenges and perspectives and a sustainable future for government deserves more
work.
122
Review’s online survey conducted September 2008.
The review’s online survey conducted September 2008 and public submissions suggest inadequate remuneration but
members’ sense of ‘community service obligation’, patience with red tape and other government challenges to their
expectations; also see Uhrig 2003, p. 101 for discussion of the competitive marketplace for skilled and experienced directors.
124
White 2008, pp. 401-407.
123
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As one commentator points outSocial survey data regularly reveals declining public trust in politicians and governments.
Yet at the same time, the Australian government and business lobbyists are complaining
about the autonomy of statutory authorities, wanting them reined in and subject to
greater ministerial control. It may be an unpalatable or unfashionable thought, but
perhaps the public actually likes ‘rogue’ regulators. Perhaps citizens … are alarmed at
the thought that the public service is too much under the thumb of ministers and their
staff. This possibility stands in tension with some of the conventions of our system of
government. But that doesn’t mean it should just be ignored.125
In governance and accountability terms, the chair of the board has a special role leading and
directing the activities of the board which by its nature can open the potential for conflict
with the minister. Responsibilities of the chair include




4.3.2
setting the Board agenda;
facilitating the flow of information and discussion; conducting Board meetings and
other business; ensuring the Board operates effectively
liaising with and reporting to the Minister;
reviewing Board and organisational performance; and
inducting and supporting Board members.126
The director-general’s perspective
On the role of the portfolio department, Uhrig’s Australian Government review recommended
that statutory authorities and office holders should ‘provide relevant information to portfolio
secretaries [departmental chief executives] in parallel to that information being provided by
statutory authorities and office holders to ministers’Departments are the primary source of public sector advice to Ministers and are best
placed to support Ministers in the governance of statutory authorities. In this respect,
the portfolio secretary has a role akin to an advisory function within a parent company in
providing advice to the CEO about the activities of the company’s subsidiaries.
Departments have a role in advising Ministers on options involving establishing statutory
authorities, on the performance of statutory authorities, in developing policy and
legislation and in supporting Ministers during the passage of legislation through the
Parliament.127
Despite the apparent breadth of the recommendation, the supporting discussion suggests
that the intention was the provision of appropriate information to assist departments in their
policy development and advisory role, and the adoption of a ‘no surprises’ approach to
keeping ministers informed. Cautions concern the risk to departmental chief executives
posed by a resultant increase in responsibilities considerably beyond existing responsibilities
for policy and legislation and executive services advice and services.
125
Holland, I., ‘The Review of the Corporate Governance of Statutory Authorities and Office Holders’, Public Administration
Today, No. 1, Sept-Nov 2004, p. 65.
Western Australia’s Government (The Machinery of Government Taskforce), Government Structures for Better Results: The
Report of the Taskforce Established to Review the Machinery of Western Australia’s Government, Perth, June 2001, pp.3.0-3.3.
126
127
Uhrig 2003, pp. 63, 65.
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39
The first time a major administrative blunder, failed policy recommendation or
embarrassing revelation about conflicts between a Minister and an authority comes to
light it will be the portfolio secretary who share the opprobrium. Ministers have welldeveloped mechanisms for avoiding blame…Portfolio secretaries have no conveniently
forgetful ministerial staff to hide behind. They, along with the authority concerned, will
share the responsibility for any failings. A defence of ‘I did not have time to read the
information sent to me’, while an accurate reflection of the workloads placed on portfolio
secretaries, is unlikely to convince the inevitable inquiry or royal commission that follows
an administrative disaster.
…
… portfolio secretaries should be worried about managing the risk it poses for them. If
they are to do so effectively, they must perforce take a more active role in managing
authorities within the portfolio. From a public policy perspective, the government’s
adoption of this recommendation as much as any other recent change in public
administration signals an end to the insistence on devolution to line managers that has
been part of public sector organisational design in Australia since the early 1980s.128
Adoption of the ‘new ball game’ would require development of communication, informationsharing, and reporting protocols to accommodate and enhance this triangular interaction
between statutory authorities, portfolio departments and secretaries, and ministers (and
their advisers).129
The Australian Government’s Governance Arrangements for Australian Government Bodies
(August 2005) cites as a further reason for establishing bodies within a departmentEven if the body were later moved to become a portfolio body outside the Department,
the Minister would still need departmental advice on that body. The Report of the Royal
Commission on Australian Government Administration (Coombs Royal Commission)
stated, in 1976, that:
‘there appears to be fairly general agreement that the Minister was entitled to
look to his [or her] department for advice on the exercise of his [or her] reserve
powers in relation to bodies in his [or her] portfolio and that accordingly there
needed to be a capacity in the department to give informed advice.’
This view was restated, in general terms, in the Uhrig Report.
The role of Queensland directors-general also deserves a certain and considered approach.
Caution, in not unreasonably extending the scope of accountabilities owed by the directorsgeneral in advising ministers on the larger non-departmental bodies, is both–
 pragmatic (literally in terms of effective workload capacity of the director-general and
their fair access to information and systems of a non-departmental body); and
Bartos, S., ‘The Uhrig Report: damp squib or ticking timebomb?’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 64, No. 1,
March 2005, p. 98.
129
Halligan, J. and Horrigan, J., ‘Reforming Corporate Governance in the Australian Federal Public Sector: From Uhrig to
Implementation’, Issues Paper Series No. 2 (as part of Australian Research Council Project: Corporate Governance in the Public
Sector: An Evaluation of its Tensions, Gaps and Potential), University of Canberra, 2005, p. 26.
128
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40

prudent (so as not to enliven any risk or fear of ‘shadow director’-style legal liability
on the director-general; also an extension of accountability would in its necessarily
risk averse/minimisation and bureaucratic way duplicate resources in the portfolio
department to support the director-general’s new role which, together with a
consideration of the relationship power struggle and suspicions that would be more
likely in the affected relationships, do not augur well for the public interest in favour
of economical, efficient and effective public administration).
However, for smaller bodies there may be greater scope for directors-general to add value
to, rather than duplicate, the chief executive responsibilities for performance briefing and
accountabilities to the minister.
Again, transparency and clarity in the respective roles and responsibilities will do much to
ensure alignment of expectations and, in support of those, that corresponding information
flows are timely, and of the appropriate quantity and quality for board members, directorsgeneral and responsible ministers.
The review’s online survey of CEOs and board members conducted in September 2008
showed that the respondents were less satisfied with the quantity, quality and timeliness of
information flows incoming and outgoing for their government body than they were for most
other indicators of governance in the survey. CEOs rated satisfaction levels concerning
information lower than the members and both gave lower satisfaction levels for timeliness
below their satisfaction for quantity and quality. CEOs rated incoming information to the
members lower than information outgoing, but the members rated information incoming to
members higher than they rated the quantity, quality and timeliness of information outgoing
from the government body members.
Uhrig’s review recommended that ‘removing uncertainties, by clarifying and enunciating
roles, would help to develop a common understanding of governance structures and
consequently their use’.130
The Government should clarify expectations of statutory authorities by Ministers issuing
Statements of Expectations to statutory authorities; by statutory authorities responding
with Statements of Intent for approval by Ministers; and by Ministers making public
Statements of Expectations and Intent.131
In response, it has been suggested that it would be expected that the ‘statutes establishing
the autonomous bodies, in conjunction with parliamentary committee scrutiny, should
combine to set the important parameters for statutory bodies’ operations’.132
Whilst others contend that if the ‘Statements of Expectations’ are faithfully developed and
applied they could have useful consequences for the independent operation of boards within
the constraints of the specified expectations. Greater accountability however would result if
sanctions were brought to bear for failure to deliver on ‘Intents’.133
130
131
Uhrig 2003, p. 62.
Uhrig 2003, p. 11; similar recommendation in Western Australia’s Government (The Machinery of Government Taskforce),
Government Structures for Better Results: The Report of the Taskforce Established to Review the Machinery of Western
Australia’s Government, Perth, June 2001, p. iv.
132
Holland, I., ‘The Review of the Corporate Governance of Statutory Authorities and Office Holders’, Public Administration
Today, No. 1, Sept-Nov 2004, p. 64.
133
Shadwick p. 29
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41
4.3.3
Parliament
Among academic commentary comes the well-evidenced observation that there are statutory
authorities whose charters and roles necessarily bring them into conflict with ‘owning’
governments from time to time, and they need special parliamentary protection.134
Parliament in creating the statutory authorities and statutory bodies can prescribe or guide
as the appropriate case may be, the degree of ministerial control and extent of
independence granted to the authority.
Once established, the main opportunities currently for parliamentary scrutiny of statutory
authorities are parliamentary question time or through the estimates committees process
and the Public Accounts Committee. The role of the Queensland Parliamentary Public
Accounts Committee is to assess the integrity, economy, efficiency and effectiveness of
Government financial management. It achieves this by examining Government financial
documents and considering the reports of the Auditor-General135. Many, although not all,
non-departmental government bodies would be subject to the audited financial statements
requirements.
Responsible ministers are accountable to parliament for all the bodies within their respective
portfolios, if not individually through separately audited financial statements and
performance reports, then for the expenditure of public funds as part of the portfolio’s
review, or generally in terms of the delegation or devolution of public power within the
minister’s portfolio.
134
Wettenhall, R., Parliamentary oversight of statutory authorities: a post-Uhrig perspective’, Australasian Parliamentary
Review, Vol. 20, No. 2, Spring 2005, p. 54.
135
<www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/committee/PAC.asp> accessed on 25 October 2008.
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42
5
A comparative view of principles
The analyst advising on whether a particular government function should be carried
out in an agency has to ask two basic questions: why is this function better
performed in an agency rather than a government department? and what are the
risks of creating a new agency and can they be effectively managed?136
The cumulative value of international and Australian experiences is significant and offers
much to consider in proposing strategies for Queensland to reduce bureaucracy and red tape
through arrangements for its government bodies.
5.1
Organisational form and reasons
In 1976, the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration (RCAGA)
recommended a stronger focus for the public sector on objectives and assessing
performance on the basis of results, as well as the need for greater responsiveness to the
elected government and its policy priorities.137
The RCAGA reported that Australia had probably made too much use of statutory authorities
and identified the primary reasons in favour of the establishment of a statutory body as


to avoid political control or full political accountability, as when the function is
quasi-judicial, regulatory, involves grants or subsidies, or entails higher
educational opinion-forming or research activities; or
to avoid departmental procedures or control, for example when performance of
commercial activities is required, particularly in competition with private
enterprise, or when a separate channel of advice or separate evaluation of
policies is desired; or
to relieve ministers of responsibility for day to day administration of detailed and
self-contained tasks.
The commission [RCAGA] then listed a set of secondary conditions:
 a desire for prestige for research-oriented institutions;
 the need for the body to be under joint government control;
 the discharge of a specialised function, particularly where private funds are
involved, for example commodity boards and trustee functions;
 a need to bring an ‘outside’ element into management of the activity in ways that
are not practicable in a department, as for instance elements of special expertise
or representation of interests or geographical representation.
The commission then asked also whether other conditions might be fulfilled:
 what machinery is required to carry out the task, and why can the department
not do it effectively?
 Does the purpose itself justify the additional staff, financial and other resources
almost certainly required if a separate (particularly non-departmental) body is to
be established?
136
Laking 2002, p. 20.
Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration, Report, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra,
1976; Ringwood, G., ‘On Leadership’ Leadership Lecture address to Leadership Victoria, 7 June 2007, p. 5.
137
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43





What precise powers, for instance over finance and staffing, and what
responsibilities to the minister, the department and parliament are required if the
body is to achieve its purpose effectively, economically and responsively?
To what extent would the creation of a new body overlap with the activities of
other department or statutory bodies? Where there is overlap the implications
should be made explicit and steps taken to avoid duplication, as a condition of
creating the new body.
Are the functions proposed coherent and capable of being exercised separately
and apart from the functions of a department?
Does the inflexibility inevitably associated over time with the functions of a
statutory body mean that the more adaptable departmental form is more
appropriate?
In what ways will the new body be accountable to the minister, the department,
parliament and the public? 138
The RCAGA also recommended that purpose clauses be used in appropriate cases to clarify
the scope and effect of legislation but where there is doubt, the RCAGA suggested it may be
best not to establish such a body and where delineation is impossible between departments
and a body, the body may best be abolished. Concerning the responsible ministers, the
RCAGA reported:


If the minister is given power of direction over a statutory body, any direction
should be in writing and be tabled in Parliament.
Statutory bodies be placed under obligation to report through the minister to
Parliament, and to include in such report an account of any issues of concern.139
The RCAGA wanted careful consideration to be given to each decision to establish or
maintain a statutory authority, but there is little evidence that such an approach was
adopted.140
The 2005 Governance Arrangements for Australian Government Bodies states that ‘a new
function, activity or power should be conferred on an existing department (or another
existing body) unless there is a persuasive case to form a new body’; and, where the case is
persuasive, a non-legislative structure is to be considered first.141 The arrangements also
provide that sufficient capacity to devote appropriate resources to governance matters is
required - and where a body’s size suggests that the effort of attention to these matters
would be disproportionate, then the body may best be consolidated into a department or
with another body.142
Wanna, J. O’Faircheallaigh, C., Weller, P., Public Sector Management in Australia, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1992, pp. 46-47.
Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration, Report, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra,
1976, pp. 415-416.
140
Wanna, J. O’Faircheallaigh, C., Weller, P., Public Sector Management in Australia, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1992, p. 47.
141
Department of Finance and Administration, Governance Arrangements for Australian Government Bodies, Financial
Management Reference Material No. 2, Australian Government, Canberra, August 2005, pp. 13, 15.
142
Department of Finance and Administration, Governance Arrangements for Australian Government Bodies, Financial
Management Reference Material No. 2, Australian Government, Canberra, August 2005, p. 35.
138
139
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44
In 1986, the then Queensland Premier endorsed the following principles as applying to the
growth and management of the statutory authority sector






the creation of a statutory authority on the basis of a clearly defined need;
the progressive increases in operational autonomy concurrent with improvements
in performance and accountability;
maximum operational autonomy consistent with the needs of the authority and
compliance with Government policies;
clear accountability to the responsible Minister, and to Parliament;
regular internal and external appraisal of performance;
regular updating of the objectives, functions, powers and management structure
of statutory authorities; and
termination of a statutory authority when that authority has fulfilled its objectives,
or when, due to changing circumstances, those objectives can be better achieved
by other means.
Queensland statutory authorities were meant to be self-funding.143
The Position Paper of Queensland’s former Service Delivery and Performance Commission on
commercialised business units suggested that the future role of government in establishing
and continuing to operate commercialised business units should consider1. ‘Should the particular activity be undertaken?’.
2. ‘Assuming the particular activity should be undertaken, should the Government be
doing it?’.
If a commercialised business unit (CBU) was proposed, then the Service Delivery and
Performance Commission recommended that the following five key principles assist
answering the next question3. ‘What is the source of value to the Government provided by the establishment and
operation of CBUs?’
 Appropriateness – the extent to which the CBU is a suitable organisational
structure for achieving government objectives
 Sustainability – the extent that current and future operating results from the CBU
operations are positive
 Flexibility – the extent to which the CBU has the necessary flexibility to respond
to changing client and market needs
 Accountability – the extent to which the CBU is accountable to its customers and
other stakeholders for the service it provides, and
 Risk – the extent to which risks are best managed through the establishment and
operation of CBUs.144
The South Australian Government circular, Improving the Effectiveness of Government
Boards and Committees (19 March 2008), recommends a review or sunset dates for
government boards and committees. The following would be considered Has the body fulfilled its intended role?
 How effective has the body been in terms of achieving the objectives set out in its
terms of reference?
Queensland Government, Queensland QUASGOS: The role of statutory authorities in State Development, 1986, p. 6.
Queensland Government (Service Delivery and Performance Commission), Position Paper on Government Commercialised
Business Units, October 2006, pp. 1-2. These principles establish the foundation for guidelines and assessment sheets for
establishing and reviewing CBUs.
143
144
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45



Is there an ongoing need for the functions of the body, and is the body the most
cost-effective way of providing those functions?
Do members have skills and experience suited to the purpose for which the body was
established?
Do the functions or operations of the body duplicate or overlap the functions or
operations of another body?145
The new Public Administration Act 2004 (Vic) introduced generic legislation which sets broad
standards of governance arrangements across different types of public entities. In addition
to departments, the public sector entities covered by the Act are administrative offices (head responsible to the secretary of the department);
 public entities (perform public functions on behalf of the State, or wholly owned by
the State);
 special bodies (e.g. Victoria Police);
 exempt bodies (e.g. parliamentary committees, local government and universities);
and
 bodies outside the Act’s ambit (e.g. community health centres).146
In 2002, the OECD reported that the United Kingdom agencies had survived the
‘modernising government’ agenda, but with somewhat less autonomy. Excessive
independence, according to the modernising logic, gets in the way of policy cohesion and
service integration. The model favoured by the Blair Government was hierarchical, with rules
and guidance flowing down, and information flowing up. Under the ‘Wiring Up Government’
manifesto, the critical relationship was between government departments and local
authorities; agencies would participate as departmental subdivisions, not as independent
entities.147
The United Kingdom’s Cabinet Office Director of the Performance and Innovation Unit and
the Forward Strategy Unit argued for hierarchy in the name of joined up governmentAs a rule government works best:
 When there are clearly identified critical tasks
 When authority and resources are distributed in ways that enable these to be
carried out
 When there is a clear sense of mission from top to bottom
 When there is sufficient freedom and flexibility for those working as managers
or front line delivery to get the job done.148
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pledged that there would be ‘no backtracking of public
sector reform’ first introduced by Tony Blair and ‘no toleration or excuses for
underperformance’.149
145
Government of South Australia, Department of the Premier and Cabinet Circular, PCO22 – Improving the Effectiveness of
Government Boards and Committees, 19 March 2008, pp. 3-4.
146
Public Administration Act 2004 (Vic), s. 5.
147
OECD 2002, pp. 50-51.
148
Mulgan, G., ‘Joined up Government in the United Kingdom: past, present and future’, Canberra Bulletin of Public
Administration, No. 105, Sept 2003, p. 27.
149
Mulholland H, 10 March 2008, <www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/10/publicservices.policy> accessed on 14/10/08.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 5
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Alternative service delivery forms in Canada are to abide a commitment to a citizen-centred
approach, public service values, managing for results and ensuring value for money. These
four commitments both drive innovative organisational arrangements for service delivery and
ensure that arrangements are tested in the public interest and contribute to good
governance.150 The following public interest test questions are used for making the case for
alternative service delivery arrangements in Canada



Does the new arrangement provide an appropriate decision-making role for
ministers?
Does the relationship with the proponent ensure appropriate links between policy and
operations?
Are the arrangements appropriate for reporting results and other relevant
performance information to ministers, Parliament and citizens?
Does the arrangement represent an appropriate balance between the flexibility
required for high organisational performance and sound governance?151
For Canada’s 2002 policy, alternative service delivery includes not just decisions about
organisational form but ‘bringing together organisations from across government, between
levels of governments, or across sectors, through partnerships (for example, ‘single
windows’, co-locations, or clustering of services to citizens) to provide more seamless and
citizen-centred services’.152
The purpose of New Zealand’s significant reform of its Crown Entities legislation in 2004 was
to provide a consistent framework and clarify accountability relationships and reporting
requirements. The Act categorises bodies and then identifies a range of generic principles
for each category.153
5.2
Governance
The OECD study recommended the following external governance principles-
1. Grouping organisations into classes
The creation, resourcing, direction and control of public organisations – and in
particular decisions on the balance between autonomy and control for classes of
public organisations – can then be systematic rather than ad hoc.
2. Assigning specific governance responsibilities
Reduce ambiguities by assigning formal responsibility for each function of
external governance to a specific individual or office.
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Policy on Alternative Service Delivery, 2002, p. 12, accessed on <www.tbssct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/opepubs/TB_B4/asd-dmps-eng.asp>.
151
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Policy on Alternative Service Delivery, 2002, p. 10, accessed on < www.tbssct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/opepubs/TB_B4/asd-dmps-eng.asp >.
152
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Policy on Alternative Service Delivery, 2002, p. 1, accessed on < www.tbssct.gc.ca/pubs_pol/opepubs/TB_B4/asd-dmps-eng.asp >.
150
153
Crown Entities Act 2004 (NZ)
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 5
47
3. A generic law for organisations
Principles 1 and 2 can be given effect in a framework law for creation and
governance of public organisations. The general procedures for external control
of public organisations should also be established in law and may determine
different categories of control for different classes of organisation. Specific
aspects of governance such as public finance or public employment may be
covered in other statutes.
4. Policy agreements and directives
The general functions and powers of an organisation should be set out in its
founding document together with the basis for the Executive’s power to direct the
policy of the organisation. Limiting and exceptional powers should be identified.
There should be a performance and funding agreement on an annually reviewed
basis and any other formal directives to the organisation should be in writing and
published.
5. Financial management
The general law relating to public finance should provide for the authorisation and
accounting by public organisations of: funding from the state budget; borrowing
or other liabilities; issue of guarantees for liabilities incurred; financial investment
and banking; and acquisition and disposal of assets.
6. Employment and remuneration of public employees
The general law governing public sector employment needs to specify the
employees who form part of the civil service, the status of employees of public
organisations, and minimum requirements such as open advertisement of
vacancies and merit appointment, and publication of the salary scales of senior
officials in public organisations.
7. External reporting and audit
Public organisations should be required by law to publish annual reports to
common standards set by the government. A committee of the legislature should
examine organisations on their performance. The supreme audit institution
should audit or delegate audit of all public organisations.
8. The planning and control cycle
An integrated process for developing and reviewing the plans and budgets of
public organisations.
9. Relaxing input control rules
Only when satisfied of the standards of internal controls and that reliable output
measures and performance management based upon outputs can be instituted.
10. Choice of and nominations of top governance
Legal responsibilities are assigned to particular named individuals, such as the
chief executive, or chairperson of the board. There should be transparency in
appointments and remuneration.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 5
48
The internal governance principles recommended by the OECD were-
1. Accounting on the use of public resources, the results achieved, and good
governance standards.
2. Accounting to and consulting with stakeholders.
3. Standards of behaviour – a code of conduct for board members and employees.
4. Control and audit - for good organisational governance.154
154
OECD 2002, pp. 270 - 277; Greater detail in Australian governance principles and practices in ASX Corporate Governance
Council (2007), Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations (2nd ed.); Standards Australia (2003), Good Governance
Principles, Australian Standard 8000-2003; OECD (2004) Principles of Corporate Governance; Australian National Audit Office
(2003) Principles of Public Sector Governance.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 5
49
A Public Interest Map for Government Bodies
6
… rules deliver more legal certainty in regulating simple phenomena while principles
deliver more legal certainty in regulating more complex phenomena. Sometimes
both rules and principles are needed, in a hierarchy of interdependent interactions.155
The compass of public interest gives legitimacy and direction to the development of
principles and rules for distributed public governance. Authority and accountability for what
is the public interest is accorded first to the democratically elected parliament from which the
executive government and responsible ministers are drawn.
This review is in two parts. The terms of reference require that Part A ‘consider the current
framework of government bodies, and recommend a governance decision-making model for
improving the relevance, efficiency and effectiveness of the roles and functions currently
being performed by government bodies’.156 This ‘model’ will form the basis on which 457 of
Queensland’s public bodies will be assessed in Part B of the review.
First, some review presumptions:
All bodies within the scope of the terms of reference157 are to be open to genuine review.
Also, there is no savings target as such and the number of bodies of itself is not the issue.
The key is value, in public interest terms (particularly relevance, economy, efficiency,
effectiveness and accountability).
Design of the Part A model proceeds from the following premises, conclusions, and empirical
assessments reached thus far:

Delegation or devolution of public power should be unambiguous, transparent,
granted and exercised in the public interest, accountable, and subject to review.

Similarly, expenditure of public funds should be clearly and transparently authorised,
accountable, and subject to scrutiny and probity.

Clarity and transparency supports good governance, which provides for
accountability, and leads to good performance outcomes.

Private sector models of corporate governance are not necessarily superior to public
sector governance models.

Particular functions or structures may not be necessary, or appropriate, on an
indefinite basis.

Organisational forms, and governance, are an evolving and inexact science.

There should be functional necessity and regulatory integrity observing minimisation
of administrative process, compliance costs and regulatory impact.
155
Australian regulatory theorist, Professor John Braithwaite, quoted in Halligan, J. and Horrigan, J., ‘Reforming Corporate
Governance in the Australian Federal Public Sector: From Uhrig to Implementation’, Issues Paper Series No. 2 (as part of
Australian Research Council Project: Corporate Governance in the Public Sector: An Evaluation of its Tensions, Gaps and
Potential), University of Canberra, 2005, p. 17.
156
Terms of Reference (at Appendix A).
157
See list of bodies in review scope at Appendix B.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
50
In a comparative sense, there are several strengths in Queensland’s existing arrangements
for government boards, committees and statutory authorities that should be acknowledged,
including:


An existing quality financial management framework.
Existing policies that contribute positively to existing governance e.g. Welcome



A Register of Statutory Authorities in Queensland159.
Auditor-General and parliamentary committee system.
A history of skilled and dedicated members to serve in various governance capacities
(many in an essentially honorary capacity).
New and strengthening administrative law reforms such as Right to Information.

Aboard: A Guide for Members of Queensland Government Boards, Committees and
Statutory Authorities; Governance Framework for Infrastructure Delivery Special
Purpose Vehicles158.
However, key weaknesses of existing arrangements and potential threats in public interest
terms include:










Extent of fragmentation and differentiation across the public sector160.
Unclear and inconsistent understandings and obligations for ministerial responsibility.
Incomplete governance framework.
Unclear or inconsistent accountabilities, or gaps in accountabilities (e.g. different
discretionary expenditure review processes for bodies administered by different
departments, or even within the one portfolio for different bodies).
Absence of current, consistent, sector-wide process in making a decision whether to
create a body.
Different departmental organisational capacity.
Sustainability of financial and human resources.
Negative citizen/customer experience.
Membership pool disenchanted by ‘red tape’ and remuneration arrangements161.
Competitive market for skilled talent in membership pool162.
Part A’s remit to develop a governance decision-making model is met by a proposed Public
Interest Map for Government Bodies that will guide principled and consistent decisionmaking on the three basic questions1.
why have a (non-departmental) government body?;
2.
if justified, what form should it take?; and
3.
how should it govern and be governed?
These three questions address themselves to the concerns at the centre of the review’s
terms of reference and focus an analytical response on the issues that define the problems.
Accordingly, the Public Interest Map for Government Bodies offers a whole-of-problem
framework for Queensland that aims to be as comprehensive as it is simple.
158
159
160
161
162
See more complete list of existing policies at p. 64.
<statauth.premiers.qld.gov.au/>
Note also: an up to date, complete list of all government bodies (not just statutory authorities) is not readily available.
See for e.g. public submissions on <www.premiers.qld.gov.au/Government/Boards_and_committees/Review/Submissions/>.
Uhrig 2002, p. 101.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
51
Figure 6.1
Public Interest Map for Government Bodies
CONCERNS
WHY
do it?
Distributed public
governance, fears of



WHAT
should do
it?
HOW
should it be
done?
Bureaucracy
Red tape
Loss of power/control
Relevance
IN ISSUE
Creation/
continued
existence
REVIEW RESPONSE
Threshold Test
ELEMENTS
Three threshold questions:
 Is there a need for it?
 Should government do it?
 Why not a department?
Public Interest Case
(four threshold criteria:
 Organisational capability;
 Independence;
 Risk; or
 Essential public
participation and
consultation)
Sunset or review
Fragmented public sector
with some wrong
structures. Perceptions of a law unto themselves
 too many companies
Independence
and ministerial
responsibility
Economy
Efficiency
Effectiveness
Performance
and
accountability
Value
Organisational
Form Guide
Good
Governance
Framework
REASONS Outcomes
in the public interest
Delegation or
devolution of public
power in appropriate
and consistent
circumstances
The right number of
bodies outside core
government
departments
Suitability guide where form
follows function (and power),
includes hierarchy of acceptable
form
Form fit for purpose
Internal & external:
Generic Act with minimum
standards according to
taxonomy of form
Policies
Certainty de minima
Consistency and rigour
Clarity
Integrity and diligence
Enhanced ministerial
responsibility
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
52
6.1
The Threshold Test (Why)
Current practice and procedure in Queensland, does not include establishment criteria to
guide decision-making on whether to create bodies outside departments.163
Concerns for bureaucracy and its spread of public power, red tape, and diminished
ministerial control and responsibility arise when there are doubts about the justification for a
government body’s existence. In addressing doubts, the first limb of the Public Interest Map
for Government Bodies navigates what properly is the default question:
Is there any compelling reason why a department can not, or should not, undertake
the proposed activity?
This sets up a weighted preference against creating a non-departmental public body.
This default question should be answered with contestable rigour and transparency by a
business case addressing threshold criteria for the establishment of bodies outside
departments and weighing relevant public interest considerations. Distinctively, such
business case is to be called a public interest case.
The public interest case should be prepared by the (leading) portfolio department proposing
that a non-departmental entity be created. As a matter of course, the primacy of the default
question should be supported by the application of a sunset clause (as determined through
the public interest case process); if not, the ongoing relevance of the public interest case
conclusions must be supported by regular review at appropriate periods (e.g. every five
years for a comparatively large and essential functional body, or more frequently for a less
significant body). Coordinating timing of the review of the public interest case with an
appropriate period prior to expiry of the key governing appointments would be opportune.
The Threshold Test can be applied in review of existing government bodies, as well as in
consideration of the creation of new bodies. Part B of this review, subject to the outcomes
of the public consultation process in December 2008-January 2009, will apply the Threshold
Test to the 457 bodies in review scope in identifying for the Premier ‘those government
bodies that are no longer necessary and can be abolished immediately’,164 with or without
recommendations to carryover the functions or powers of that body to the department or an
alternative, more suitable entity.
163
See p. 44. The (former) Service Delivery and Performance Commission recommended guidelines for establishing and
reviewing CBUs; and Treasury’s Guidelines for the Formation, Acquisition and Post Approval Monitoring of Companies specify
when a company structure is most likely to be appropriate and when it is not.
164
Terms of Reference (at Appendix A).
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
53
Figure 6.2
Threshold Test
Does the activity need to be done?
No
e.g.
- unsubstantiated need
- policy decision
Yes
e.g.
Should the Queensland Government
undertake the proposed activity?
No
- may be more appropriate
in the circumstances to
provide a grant to a nongovernment organisation
to service the need
- properly a private sector
activity
- alternative
interjurisdictional
arrangements
Yes
- Commonwealth
constitutional
responsibility
- local government role
Is there any compelling reason why
a department cannot, or should not,
undertake the proposed activity?
[An overriding public interest benefit
must be demonstrated by a public
interest case, endorsed by the
portfolio minister and Treasurer,
and approved by the Premier – see
public interest case considerations
at pp. 54-55]
No
Department to examine
most suitable departmental
options for performance,
accountability and review of
function, and implement
with appropriate approvals
Yes
Go to
Organisational
Form Guide
Apply sunset
clause or
review period
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
54
The Public Interest Case
for creating (or continuing) a non-departmental government body
Premise:
A department165 is the organisational form of first choice for government unless there is a
compelling case demonstrating an overriding public interest benefit in favour of the creation
of a new non-departmental body.
The public interest case must clearly identify the role, responsibilities, risk and accountability
profile for the proposed new entity.
At least one of the threshold criteria must be satisfied as a compelling case to override the
premise in a consideration of the proposal from whole of government and stakeholder
perspectives.
Threshold Criteria:
1. Organisational Capability
It is not possible or reasonably feasible for a departmental body (or another body
already in existence) to undertake the proposed new activity (functions or powers) or
achieve the desired outcomes.166
This does not mean that unsatisfactory organisational performance can be excused
by moving a departmental function to a perceived more ‘nimble’ or ‘efficient’ nondepartmental body. In that scenario the problem is a performance one to be
managed, it is not a structural one for want of organisational form. Avoiding one
problem and potentially creating another is not a sustainable public sector.
If the function in question can properly be categorised as a departmental function
then organisational capability and performance of the existing departmental structure
should respond appropriately.
2. Independence
The nature and extent of actual or perceived independence in order to undertake the
activity is beyond that which the department, or any alternative arrangements with
the department, can provide.
Activity of a regulatory or an independent statutory nature does not necessarily
preclude a contemporary departmental structure and governance arrangements.
3. Risk
There would be an unacceptable level of risk to the State if the activity were to be
undertaken by a departmental entity or another existing body. The public interest
case is to include a risk assessment where the risk criteria include the following
relevant public interest principles in Figure 6.3.
As defined under s. 4A of the Financial Administration and Audit Act 1977.
Note for example that the experience in Canada revealed that many of the flexibilities required already existed but had not
been delegated.
165
166
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
55
Public Interest
Principles:
Accountability
Figure 6.3
Considerations, include:
 Clarity of roles and objectives
 Collective Ministerial responsibility
+ political control for accountability
- dysfunctional behavioural risks (see Table 4.1, p. 32)
 Transparency and availability of information
 External scrutiny
 Increased scrutiny of government reduces need for ‘arms length’
arrangements
 Meaningful performance measures possible
Economy




Efficiency
 Overlap or duplication with departments or other relevant bodies
 Flexibility to anticipate and respond to emerging needs/changing
markets
 Competitive neutrality
[Avoiding the ‘burden’ of compliance with governance and accountability
mechanisms in legislation and policies is not efficiency nor is it in the
public interest]
Effectiveness
Relevance
Sustainability of the non-departmental entity’s operations
Can additional costs be justified?
Is there another existing body more suitable?
Relevance of benefits from economies of specialisation vs economies
of scale
 Extent to which autonomy is necessary to attract and retain
independent expertise; and hold confidence and trust of stakeholders,
in order to perform the proposed role
 Value for money
 Achievement of specific government objectives
 Extent to which public participation in government activity or access to
government decision-making is enabled in essential and superior terms
compared with the alternative mechanisms available
 Quasi-fiscal activities, such as risks associated with borrowing money
 Access to government decision-making
4. Essential public participation and consultation
Facilitation of a greater degree of public participation in government activity or better
and more diverse access to government decision-making (enhancing the political
process) may justify the creation or continuation of a body outside the traditional
departmental structure. However, the degree of this advantage needs to be essential
and superior as tested against contemporary alternatives in relevant community
engagement practices and consultation mechanisms. That is, can the objective of
inclusivity in government be achieved similarly by another way or through another entity?
The effectiveness of the individual body’s actual governance arrangements in delivering
on the promise of greater access to government decision-making should also be checked
before validating this argument in favour of the creation or continuance of an additional
government body.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
56
6.2
The Organisational Form Guide (What)
Generically in Queensland, there are five different organisational forms additional to the
traditional departmental structure, plus several different corporate options including
corporation sole, government owned corporations, and special purpose vehicles in the form
of public companies and proprietary limited companies (large or small). Further, companies
may be limited by shares or by guarantee, unlimited with share capital, or take the form of a
no liability company.
Appendix E plots the various organisational forms currently against their key characteristics
of form and governance, including for departments where relevant. (Note, statutory
authorities and statutory bodies are not equivalent forms despite common usage. The
principal difference is that, unlike a statutory body, a statutory authority does not have
control over its own funds.)
Across the 457 bodies within scope of this review, there is additional nomenclature in use for
the various forms. Many of the statutory authorities or statutory bodies for example are
called ‘Commissions’ and ‘Tribunals’ indicating their particular functional nature. Many others
are called ‘boards’ even though within that naming they can have quite a degree of
difference in their actual governing or determinative powers. The field is confusing for
stakeholders and users of government services; for government (in deciding in the absence
of guidelines) which is the most suitable body to create if one outside a department is
necessary; and it is potentially misleading for the members or participants on the bodies
themselves. Expectations of respective roles may not align, particularly with the portfolio
minister when a board is so named, incorrectly.
From Appendix E and the review’s audit material, the following spectrum of function,
autonomy and form presents in Figure 6.4.
Figure 6.4
Spectrum of function, autonomy and form
Functional
advisory/
consultative
policy/review/
specialist
Independence
makes no
decisions
Structure
department
advice
committees
advisory
councils
CBUs
governing
trustees
recommendations
statutory
authority
regulatory/
registration/
appeal
decisions
statutory
body
unreviewable decisions
corporation
sole
trust
Low
Degree of delegated/devolved power
High
Low
Degree of risk
High
=
trading
SPVs
GOCs
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
57
Where the loci of authority are further from the centre of government, so are the risks
greater. In the most part, the magnitude of risk would correlate to the inherent nature of
the activities undertaken. However, decisions on organisational form need to ensure
effective risk management which does not mean moving policy responsibility to an arm’s
length entity in an attempt to provide an institutional shield to the minister, nor does it mean
moving liability to company form just because the endeavour is risky. As the Queensland
Guidelines for the Formation, Acquisition and Post Approval Monitoring of Companies
emphasise, company form should not be used to shelter a department from risks that would
not otherwise be acceptable.167
In 1991, the Queensland Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts recommended a closer
involvement and relationship of ministers and government companies emphasising that the
closer the statutory relationship between minister and agency, the greater the accountability,
and thatMinisters must understand that they have to bear the responsibility for the actions of
these companies in the same way as they bear the responsibility for the actions of
their departments.168
The relative ease with which a new function can be registered under the Corporations Act
2001 in contrast with the time and process involved with passage of legislation to establish a
statutory authority, and the corresponding differences in transparency if not visibility, has
been described as an ‘accountability deficit’.169 However, where regulatory power is required,
legal grants of authority, constraints and remedies have to be imposed, so the convenience
of company creation does not necessarily outweigh the need for statutory prescription.170
Notwithstanding the existence of the 2005 Guidelines for the Formation, Acquisition and Post
Approval Monitoring of Companies to control creation of companies, in 2007 the Queensland
Auditor-General commented that of the 228 public sector companies he audits approximately
18 of those had been created in just that one year. He continuedIn past reports to the Queensland Parliament, I have raised the issue that when
companies are established or acquired by public sector entities, there is sometimes a
perception by parent entities and at times by the company itself that they are
separate from the public sector and are not strictly public sector entities. Also there
seems to be an assumption that by establishing a company as opposed to another
type of public sector entity, that a different, more private sector attitude to probity
and accountability can be adopted. In some cases companies have not been subject
to the same high level of governance and accountability mechanisms expected of
other types of government entities.
Queensland Treasury, Guidelines for the Formation, Acquisition and Post Approval Monitoring of Companies, September
2005, p. 3.
168
Queensland Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts, Accountability of Government Companies, Report No.10, April
1991, p. 22.
169
Wettenhall, R., ‘Non-departmental public bodies under the Howard Government’, Australian Journal of Public Administration,
Vol. 66, No. 1, March 2007, p. 68.
170
Wettenhall, R., ‘Non-departmental public bodies under the Howard Government’, Australian Journal of Public Administration,
Vol. 66, No. 1, March 2007, p. 73.
167
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
58
In my view, the Parliament needs to be given assurance that appropriate governance
and accountability is in place for all public sector entities, regardless of size and type.
I continue to raise issues regarding the governance of public sector companies as I
believe that this is an area of governance weakness in the overall accountability
framework as it currently exists in Queensland. (emphasis added)171
Compounding the Auditor-General’s concerns, it may be reasonable to speculate that the
numerous entities in Queensland that are named a ‘Board’ (even though they are not even
companies but in fact of the less devolved committee form) may also be factoring into the
misconceptions of non-public sector status unconstrained by public sector governance and
accountability requirements.
Yet even for companies, ‘equivalent governance and accountability frameworks’ are to be
expected as apply to departmental agencies.172
To avoid ongoing confusion as to role and limits on effective ministerial responsibility, the
use of ‘Board’ in a body’s name should be reserved for those governing entities that are in
legal fact boards of a statutory authority, statutory body, company, or a GOC. Similarly, the
use of the word ‘Trust’ in the title of bodies that are not such should be reconsidered. (Note
the review analysis of body types by named title compared with body functions at Appendix
F.)
Uhrig’s Australian Government’s review of public bodies recommended just two templates for
governance structure:
 A ‘board template’ where government decides to delegate full powers to act to a
board (including powers of appointment), or where there are multiple accountabilities
because the Commonwealth itself does not fully own assets or equity of a statutory
authority.
 Other cases to apply an ‘executive management’ template’173.
Uhrig recommended that a board is not the appropriate governance structure for statutory
authorities involved in service provision or regulation because government retains control of
policy and strategy development leaving an ineffective role for the board that simply dilutes
accountability by adding a layer between management and the minister.174 Since Uhrig’s
review, the Australian Government has removed many governing boards from statutory
bodies which have been replaced with CEOs who report to the secretary/minister (as well as
the use of advisory boards for guidance on technical matters).
As a matter of principle, it is not the size of the menu of form choice that is concerning as it
is the total number of unnecessary non-departmental bodies or the number of bodies in
unsuitable form. As such, the rigidity of just two templates is not accepted. Rather, a clear
determination of the available organisational forms that adequately covers the power and
risk spectrum would provide suitable flexibility and specificity to minimise excess powers and
bodies.
Auditor-General of Queensland, Report to Parliament No. 5 for 2007, Results of Audits as at 31 May 2007, August 2007, p.
37.
172
Queensland Treasury, Guidelines for the Formation, Acquisition and Post Approval Monitoring of Companies, September
2005, p. ii (Under-Treasurer’s Foreword).
173
Uhrig 2002, p. 10.
174
Uhrig 2002, p. 9.
171
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
59
For Queensland, once a compelling case is made in favour of the creation of an additional
body the following suitability of form guide (Figure 6.5) will continue the public interest case
contending the most appropriate form to follow function. The preferred hierarchy of
organisational form is indicated. Viewed on the spectrum of function, accountability and
form, the most acceptable form is the one with least devolved or delegated power (commensurate with fulfilling objective and
function);
 typically least risk; and
 enhanced ministerial responsibility.
Figure 6.5
Organisational Form Guide
Functional Indicators175
Form Options
Trading

Engaged in commercial activities

Has own control of funds

Different forms according to risk and level of independence required on a
public interest assessment (i.e. not just on a presumption or precedent that a
commercial activity requires a private sector company and board model)
[With or without a board.]
For CBUs – suitable for delivery of services to government
see assessment per SDPC recommendations, as approved by Cabinet
For Companies – see 3 stage approval process in Guidelines for the Formation,
Acquisition and Post Approval Monitoring of Companies and note that a company
structure should only be used as a last resort.
For SPVs – see Special Purpose Vehicle Governance Framework and Guidelines
Governing

(Typically, a board to) oversight and govern the operation of an agency at
arm’s length from government department

Choice of form according to the need to control funds for the operation of the
agency
[With or without a board – consider public interest in alternative use of advisory
board (not governing board) especially if representational interests required, and
CEO reporting to minister]
Policy/Review/Specialist

State level with a policy or coordination role, or

A review role, or

Expertise with a specialist, scientific or research role
1. CBUs
2. Statutory Authority
3. Statutory Body
4. Corporation Sole
5. Company (and SPVs)
6. GOC
1. Statutory Authority
2. Statutory Body
1. Committee or advisory
council
2. Statutory Authority
[Statutory authority with or without a board]
Regulatory/Registration/Appeal

Regulatory or registration role to determine standards, monitor and regulate
practice, or grant licences

Quasi-judicial, complaints or appeals role to investigate complaints, review
decisions and make judgments
Regulatory/Registration [With or without a board but depending on the nature of
the role and extent of its powers, in many instances a board would not have an
effective role and would be surplus to governance requirements]
Appeal - [No board]
1. Statutory Authority
Category descriptions adopted from Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Welcome Aboard: A Guide for Members of
Queensland Government Boards, Committees and Statutory Authorities, July 2002.
175
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
60
Trustees

A board to manage a public trust account to quarantine monies from other
operating funds

Expert, community or peer judgment independent of government critical but
within defined parameters for the benefit of trust beneficiaries

For exceptional cases whereo public donations are to be received for a specific charitable purpose
and are tax deductible; and
o beneficiaries are publicly regarded as vulnerable and whose interests
must be protected financially via a trust account.
A statutory trust (statutory body) is preferred. A common law trust should be of
last resort
Advisory/Consultative

Provide greater stakeholder and/or community access, or more equitable
access, to government decision-making through enabling advice and
recommendations to ministers and agencies on policies, plans and practices or
issues referred for comment

Committees enable coordination within and across portfolios to facilitate
policies, plans or projects
1. Statutory Body
2. Trust
1. Committee or advisory
council
Regular review of ongoing relevance and representative nature of membership and
advisory/consultation mechanisms. Revisit threshold test for creation of body
against contemporary public administration practices and community engagement
endeavour
The range and number of organisational forms available, as compared with that in Appendix
E currently, are essentially the same. The differences, however, in this decision-making
model are importantly, adoption of the board model is not presumed, but is to be contested and
justified: less is more;
 less confusing, more accurate nomenclature once a form has been determined;
 guidance on suitable form to follow functional characteristics, as well as what level of
autonomy versus control should pertain to a particular category (on whole of
government application this would further consistency of process and outcomes); and
 organisational forms with fewer limits on monitoring, control and ministerial
responsibility are preferred, whilst maintaining regulatory integrity, as relevant.
6.3
The Good Governance Framework (How)
6.3.1
Legislative
There is no generic legislative framework in Queensland on the governance of the hundreds
of government bodies that exist outside portfolio departments.
Key elements of the government financial management framework (such as financial
statements, annual reports and role of the Auditor-General) apply to some, but not all
categories of bodies in the Financial Administration and Audit Act 1977 (which is currently
under significant review) and its subordinate Financial Management Standard 1997. The
Statutory Bodies Financial Arrangements Act 1982 applies to statutory bodies (and in a
limited way to trusts) to give them the power to enter financial arrangements and control
funds. The Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) does not establish principles and procedures to
ensure strong corporate governance practices. Rather, it places the onus of ensuring
adequate governance on the directors of the company.176
176
Queensland Treasury, 10 October 2008.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
61
There are at least 98 councils (some advisory), 64 committees, 109 boards variously applied
across the spectrum, 15 commissions, 52 trusts or foundations (see summary at Appendix
F). Some have, to a greater or lesser extent, other governance requirements specified in
individual pieces of legislation that establish the respective entities.
A common and certain set of minimum standards, processes and responsibilities for the
external and internal governance of these bodies would be a critical first step in providing,
and assuring, government, ministers and the public of their value and accountability.
A legislative basis for a governance framework would also guarantee its continuance subject to parliamentary amendment, unlike past examples
in Queensland and the Commonwealth where what guidance did exist was not
heeded or continued (e.g. Queensland’s 1987 Statutory Authorities Manual and the
RCAGA in 1976 at the Commonwealth level);
 ensure the requirements are transparent and readily accessible to all;
 raise the profile and importance of good governance; and
 respect parliament’s role in establishing the various bodies and ultimately, in their
better scrutiny.
The objective for a generic legislative framework is not to encumber all bodies regardless of
their different categories with the same standards. It is not to impose a ‘one size fits all’
regime. Rather, the aim is for suitable flexibility across specified categories but within a
category there would be a clear, consistent, visible and readily accessible minimum
governance framework (that covers more than financial governance arrangements).
Moreover, as the standards in the generic model are de minima, government bodies may
adopt higher standards if they choose. Consistent with prevailing Australian principles,
governing boards ought to still consider and adopt governance standards suitable to their
body – but they would need to at least meet the statutory minimum.
If the standards set in the Act establishing the body are higher than the minimum standards
set in the generic Act, then the higher standards in the establishing legislation would prevail.
The review’s recommended generic Act would not override existing governance
arrangements for government bodies unless those arrangements were to a lesser standard
than those of the generic legislation.177
The review’s recommended Act would take a generic title such as the Government Bodies
Act (or Public Entities Act or similar) and could include provision for at least178
Core public sector governance principles-179
o Transparency;
o Accountability;
o Integrity (acting with integrity also requires resolution of potential and actual
conflicts of interest with selflessness and objectivity in the public interest.);
This interaction with other governance standards is the approach adopted by the Public Administration Act 2004 (Vic) (and
as reported in Bini, M., ‘The Public Administration Act 2004 (Vic): A new approach to the liability and duties of directors on
government boards and authorities’, Company and Securities Law Journal, Vol. 26, 2008, p. 184).
178
De minima drawn from sources and analysis including: OECD 2002, p. 271; Edwards & Clough 2005; Public Administration
Act 2004 (Vic); Bini, M., ‘The Public Administration Act 2004 (Vic): A new approach to the liability and duties of directors on
government boards and authorities’, Company and Securities Law Journal, Vol. 26, 2008; Crown Entities Act 2004 (NZ).
179
The principles may form the objects clause. Corporations Law copes with prescribing similar concepts. The following
became individual duties to act in New Zealand’s legislation: duty to act with honesty and integrity, in good faith and not at
expense of entity’s interests, with reasonable care, diligence, and skill.
177
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
62
o
o
180
181
due diligence (correlates to acting ‘in the public interest’ which means in
accordance with the law and policy objectives of the elected government, under the
direction of the responsible minister – and in this context, as delimited by the
Government Bodies Act.); and
economy and efficiency.

Categorisation of available non-departmental bodieso committees or advisory councils;
o statutory authorities;
o statutory bodies;
o trusts;
o corporation sole; and
o companies (excluding government owned corporations established under the
Government Owned Corporations Act 1993; and constitutionally consistent with the
Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) ).

Outline procedure for creation and removal of the different categories of body.

Definition of functions and powers of the different categories of body.
Address the nature and extent of independence, monitoring and control mechanisms,
power to subject category of body to specified government policies, and expectations
of communication and information exchanges (e.g ministerial directives in writing),
powers of delegation. Functions and powers are the principal determinant on whether
a board would be required.

Powers and duties of office holders.

Clarity of respective roles (roles of board, members and responsible minister must be
clear (see pp. 33-40).
New Zealand’s generic legislation holds board members accountable to the responsible
minister for the performance of their duties as members.180 Victoria’s generic
legislation is the ‘first and only provision in Australia which clearly states that the board
of a public entity is accountable to the minister and the minister to Parliament’.181

Role of Parliament.
Specific consideration for the role of Parliament in oversighting activities of public
bodies through ministers (e.g. tabling of ministerial directives within a specified
timeframe or in the annual report, directives so tabled may be subject to disallowance).

Liabilities and indemnities.

Process and criteria for appointment and removal of chief executive and board
members, where applicable.
For boards for example, include a skills audit process with each new appointment that
accounts for board objectives; any generic requirements for board size and
composition,182 terms of appointment, and no compensation for loss of office.
Crown Entities Act 2004 (NZ), s.26.
Bini, M., ‘The Public Administration Act 2004 (Vic): A new approach to the liability and duties of directors on government
boards and authorities’, Company and Securities Law Journal, Vol. 26, 2008, p. 183. Note Bini’s consideration of any potential
legal liability of ministers as ‘shadow directors’ resulting from Victoria’s extended provision at pp.188-190.
182
In Edwards & Clough 2005, p.9: ‘Eight directors are cited as the upper limit and 6.6 as the mean board size in a study by
Kiel and Nicholson. (2003:194). In another study, eight is described as ‘typical’ (Larker et al., 2004:7), while Leblanc and Gillies
note that eight to eleven is viewed as optimal (2004:5). Uhrig reports that six to nine is current good practice in the private
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
63

Nature and extent of agreements with or directives from government departments and
responsible portfolio minister.
A whole of government direction could provide an opportunity to achieve economies of
scale, or pursue a whole of government policy initiative (e.g. improving operating
standards or service delivery, e-government requirements, or requirements of
purchasing or tendering)183

Financial management.
Public finance matters may be wholly contained in the new Queensland Financial
Administration Act.

Risk management (including non-financial risks) and reporting.

Performance planning, reporting and evaluation.

Subcommittees and subsidiaries.

Conflict of Interest disclosure rules.184

Employment of staff.
Public employment may be wholly contained in the new Public Service Commissioner’s
legislation.185

Requirements for a Code of Conduct.
A code of conduct should encourage high standards of behaviour and leadership (and
an organisational culture reflecting desired values), which are the ‘soft’ governance
elements that research has shown to be critical in the effective interplay with ‘hard’
governance elements for good governance. This code should include for government
bodies for example, a coinciding ethical obligation of economy and efficiency which
imposes a financial management obligation to ensure that resources are expended
efficiently and appropriately. Codes of conduct and complementary policy material like
financial management practice manuals reinforce government and community
expectations of financial probity and, simply, that public funds are not to be, or be
perceived to be expended lavishly. Particularly for government bodies operating in
commercially competitive markets, a code of conduct can assist in managing conflicts
of interest concerning expenditure on, and receipt of gifts, corporate hospitality and
entertainment.
6.3.2
Non-legislative
Common de minima in a single Act would be supported by a policy framework that addresses
in appropriate detail the various procedural and policy elements of the threshold test for
creation of a new body and review of existing bodies, the organisational form guide, and
supplementary guidance for the good governance framework.
sector (2003:96) but goes on to suggest that optimal board size in the public sector may differ from one organisation to
another.’
183
Bini, M., ‘The Public Administration Act 2004 (Vic): A new approach to the liability and duties of directors on government
boards and authorities’, Company and Securities Law Journal, Vol. 26, 2008, p. 185.
184
See for e.g. Crown Entities Act 2004 (NZ), ss. 62-72.
185
Public Service Act 2008 (Qld).
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
64
Existing and revised policies as required would also complement the new governance
decision-making model for Queensland government boards, committees and statutory
authorities. Those policies and documents include










Financial Reporting Requirements and the Non-current Asset Policies for the
Queensland Public Sector(issued by Treasury);
Remuneration of Part-time Chairs and Members of Government Boards, Committees
and Statutory Authorities (issued by the Department of Employment and Industrial
Relations) – for the objectives of process minimisation and avoidance of duplicated
effort (efficiency and red tape), the Guideline’s scoping and assessment process for a
body’s characteristics, intensity/complexity, impact on government and
geographical/industry/community coverage should be appropriately integrated and
coordinated (consistent) with the Organisational Form Guide and related business case
for creation and review of bodies. Additionally, with the possible remuneration
consequences if some governing boards were to become advisory boards further
consideration of the remuneration arrangements would be required. Public
contributions to date to the review also contest appropriateness of remuneration
arrangements as a possible threat for recruitment and governance more broadly. (Part
B will make recommendations, after 457 bodies considered in detail);
Annual Report Guidelines (issued by the Department of the Premier and Cabinet);
Guidelines for Managing Conflicts of Interests for Statutory Office Holders (issued by
the Department of the Premier and Cabinet). Revise or repeal in light of new
legislative provisions for conflict of interest disclosure rules in proposed generic Act;
State Procurement Policy (issued by the Queensland Government Chief Procurement
Office);
Leasing in the Queensland Public Sector – Policy Guidelines (issued by Treasury);
Guidelines for the Formation, Acquisition and Post-approval Monitoring of Companies
(issued by Treasury);
Commercialisation of Government Service Functions in Queensland (Policy Framework)
(issued by Treasury);
Governance Framework for Infrastructure Delivery Special Purpose Vehicles (issued by
the Department of Infrastructure and Planning);
The Queensland Cabinet Handbook (issued by the Department of the Premier and
Cabinet) – include a policy determination of public servants on boards as members in
their own right, ex officio, or not at all (Part B will make recommendations, after 457
bodies considered in detail); and
Welcome Aboard: A Guide for Members of Queensland Government Boards,
Committees and Statutory Authorities (issued by the Department of the Premier and
Cabinet).
The Queensland Auditor-General’s Better Practice Guides and Checklists also provide
guidance and support to the governance framework for Queensland government bodies.
6.4
Reducing bureaucracy and red tape
The Public Interest Map for Government Bodies will support a principled, consistent and
transparent Part B review of the 457 government bodies within scope of the review’s terms
of reference. In serving the objective to reduce bureaucracy and red tape, the Threshold
Test and Organisational Form Guide will put the merits of a body’s need and form to contest
and, if the body and form is justified, development of the Good Governance Framework will
anchor minimum standards of governance for economy, efficiency and effectiveness over
and above the individual review recommendations of Part B.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 6
65
7
Preliminary Recommendations
The scope of this review is significant with 457 (out of a total of 510) government bodies;
 approximately 20% of the State’s revenue and expenditure; and
 the bodies representing the full gamut of functions x impact x budget x autonomy x
governance permutations ranging for example from those with significant budgets
and functions with State wide impact to those with no budgets but significant local
impact, from the contentious to the not so contentious.
These



recommendations are submitted in preliminary form to acknowledge that –
this Part A report is now released for public consultation;
individual review of the 457 bodies in scope will occur in Part B of the review; and
significant stakeholder consultation will occur in the course of the review of 457
bodies.
Accordingly, the additional information and perspectives gained through further detailed
review processes and formal open consultation provides a valuable opportunity to test and
extend the Part A recommendations. Such a rigorous review methodology is important in
getting the balance right in recommending the future for government bodies in Queensland.
Chapter 6 of this report recommends a Public Interest Map for Government Bodies that
responds directly to the Part A remit to ‘recommend a governance decision-making model for
improving the relevance, efficiency and effectiveness of the roles and functions currently
being performed by government bodies’. The following preliminary recommendations are a
summary only of the various elements of the Public Interest Map for Government Bodies
detailed, and contained in various Figures, in Chapter 6 as cross-referenced below.
RECOMMENDATION 1:
The Queensland Government should adopt the Public Interest Map for Government
Bodies (as per Figure 6.1, p. 51 and chapter 6, pp. 49-64).
RECOMMENDATION 2:
The Public Interest Map for Government Bodies should include:
Why have a (non-departmental) government body?
(1)
The Threshold Test (as per Figure 6.2, p. 53 and pp. 52-55) which includes:
a. Threshold questions
Does the activity need to be done?
Should the Queensland Government undertake the proposed activity?
Is there any compelling reason why a department can not, or should not,
undertake the proposed activity? – an overriding public interest benefit must
be demonstrated by a public interest case.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 7
66
b. Public interest case process for creating (or continuing) a non-departmental
government body.
(i)
Threshold criteria




organisational capacity;
independence;
risk; or
essential public participation and consultation.
Risk criteria should include public interest principles of accountability,
economy, efficiency, effectiveness, relevance
(as per Figure 6.3 on p. 55).
It is not to be assumed that regulatory functions or independent
statutory functions or officeholders must only be outside a department
(p. 54 and p. 20).
(ii)
The public interest case should be prepared by the proposing
department, endorsed by the portfolio minister and Treasurer, and
approved by the Premier.
c. application of a sunset clause, or regular review of the ongoing relevance of
the public interest case conclusions for the creation of the body.
RECOMMENDATION 3:
The Public Interest Map for Government Bodies should include:
If justified, what form should it take?
(2)
Public interest case continued to determine the most suitable form to follow
function and observe the preferred hierarchy of form also contained in the
Organisational Form Guide at Figure 6.5 (pp. 59-60).
 there are 6 non-departmental organisational form categories: committee or
advisory council; statutory authority; statutory body; trust; company (public
or proprietary limited); and government owned corporations;
 the most acceptable form is the one fit for purpose with least delegated or
devolved power;
 adoption of a board model within the organisational form is not to be
presumed, but is to be contested and justified; and
 there should be less confusing and more accurate nomenclature once a form
has been determined, includingo the use of ‘Board’ in a body’s name should be reserved for those
governing entities that are in legal fact boards of a statutory authority,
statutory body, company or a government owned corporation; and
o the use of the word ‘Trust’ in the title of bodies that are not such
should be reconsidered.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 7
67
RECOMMENDATION 4:
The Public Interest Map for Government Bodies should include:
How should it govern and be governed?
(3)
A Good Governance Framework (as per pp. 60-64) containing a common and
certain set of minimum standards, processes and responsibilities for the external
and internal governance of government bodies in Queensland, which includesa. a generic Government Bodies Act which provides for a legislative taxonomy of
form, and within each form type, a minimum set of standards would apply.
(i)
Government bodies may adopt higher standards if they choose.
(ii)
Governing boards should still consider and adopt governance
standards suitable to their body – but they would need to at least
meet the statutory minimum.
(iii)
If the standards set in the Act establishing a body are higher than the
minimum standards set in the generic Act, then the higher standards
in the establishing legislation would prevail. (The generic Act would
not override existing governance arrangements unless they were of a
lesser standard).
(iv)
The generic Act could provide for core public sector governance principles;
 categorisation of available non-departmental bodies;
 outline procedure for creation and removal of the different
categories of body;
 definition of functions and powers of the different categories of
body;
 powers and duties of office holders;
 clarity of respective roles;
 role of Parliament;
 liabilities and indemnities;
 process and criteria for appointment and removal of chief
executive and board members, where applicable;
 nature and extent of agreements with or directives from
government departments and responsible portfolio minister;
 financial management;
 risk management (including non-financial risks) and reporting;
 performance planning, reporting and evaluation;
 subcommittees and subsidiaries;
 conflict of interest disclosure rules;
 employment of staff; and
 requirements for a code of conduct.
b. A policy framework should support common de minima in a single Act. The
policy framework would address in appropriate detail the various procedural
and policy elements of the threshold test for creation of a new body and
review of existing bodies, the organisational form guide, and supplementary
guidance for the good governance framework. Existing policies would be
revised as necessary to complement the Good Governance Framework.
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 7
68
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
In addition to the open invitation for public comment on the preliminary recommendations
and the Part A Report generally, the review takes the opportunity to include the following
questions for further public comment and contribution:
Bureaucracy and red tape
1. Having regard to the possible ways bureaucracy and red tape arise as suggested at
pp. 20-24, what are other sources of concern? What remedies for any of the concerns
would you suggest?
Governance
2. What additional legislative or non-legislative matters should form part of the
recommended Good Governance Framework? (see pp. 60-64)
3. What can be done to improve the interplay of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ attributes of governance?
(see p. 26 and p. 63)
4. What are the constraints or threats for a ‘high performing board’? (p. 27)
5. What are the sources of confusion or lack of clarity in roles for boards (chairperson and
members), responsible minister, portfolio department (and director-general)?
6. What would be the most effective combination of Charter, Statements of Expectations,
Statements of Intent, or other tools and strategies to achieve clarity and transparency for
the different categories of government bodies?
7.
In what circumstances, if at all, should public servants be directors or ex officio observers
on government boards? (NB. in an unpaid capacity as part of public service role)
Independence and ministerial responsibility
8. How could risks (and tensions) in the fraught triangular relationship of accountabilities be
managed for responsible minister, board member, and director-general? How can the
‘public interest’ guide better outcomes? (pp. 30-40 and p. 62)
9. What should be the role for Parliament in that relationship, and in external governance
and scrutiny of government bodies generally? (p. 41 and p. 62)
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 7
69
8
Next Steps
The review’s terms of reference require that Part B ‘identify and recommend to the Premier:
 those government bodies that are working efficiently;
 those government bodies that are no longer necessary and can be abolished
immediately;
 the work of any government bodies that can be merged into the functions of an
existing government department;
 whether there are other bodies that carry out similar or complementary functions
and, if so, whether the functions of the government bodies can be transferred to one
of these other bodies;
 those government bodies for which longer term strategies may be considered, e.g.
delivery of function by alternative manner; and
 a process for the establishment of any future government bodies, which takes into
consideration the need for a new body given that existing bodies may be able to
perform the proposed functions’.186
There are 457 government bodies within the scope of this review (see list of bodies at
Appendix B).
Part B requires an examination of each of these bodies to make recommendations on their
individual futures. The Part B approach will be informed and guided by the Public Interest
Map for Government Bodies (see Figure 6.1 at p. 51).
Specifically, the Part B challenge will apply the Threshold Test (for whether a separate body
should exist at all) and the Organisational Form Guide (for if so, then in what form). The
draft Good Governance Framework will assist Part B’s consideration of the performance and
accountability tensions and their impact on the public interest ambition for responsiveness,
economy, efficiency and effectiveness.
And, ultimately, the Public Interest Map for Government Bodies will provide a transparent
and principled basis to Part B’s recommendations for reducing bureaucracy and red tape.
A call for public submissions is made with the public release of the Part A report (closing 16
January 2009). All are invited to make submissions. Further stakeholder consultations will
also be conducted prior to the Part B (final) report.
In making a submission, government bodies (or their members or employees individually)
are encouraged to consider in particular the elements of the Public Interest Map for
Government Bodies in chapter 6 of the Part A report as it relates to their body.
The Part B report is due to the Premier on 31 March 2009.
186
Terms of Reference (at Appendix A).
A Public Interest Map  Chapter 8
70
Appendix A
TERMS OF REFERENCE
Review of Government Boards, Committees and
Statutory Authorities
Background and scope
The Queensland Government will undertake a review of all government boards, committees and
statutory authorities (hereinafter referred to as “government bodies’).
Unless directed by the Premier, this review will not consider:
-
interdepartmental advisory committees;
-
independent statutory office holders such as those listed in section 67 of the Parliament of
Queensland Act 2001;
-
Government Owned Corporations (GOCs);
-
Those tribunals that have been the subject of a separate review; and
-
Those events related bodies that are the subject of a separate review.
Purpose of the Review
The review will aim to reduce bureaucracy and unnecessary red tape; improve the overall efficiency of
government bodies; and maintain the integrity and security of necessary regulatory functions.
Outcome
The outcome of the review will be delivered in two stages.
Part A will consider the current framework of government bodies, and recommend a governance
decision-making model for improving the relevance, efficiency and effectiveness of the roles and
functions currently being performed by government bodies.
Informed by the recommended option delivered in Part A, Part B will identify and recommend to the
Premier:
-
those government bodies that are working efficiently;
-
those government bodies that are no longer necessary and can be abolished immediately;
-
the work of any government bodies that can be merged into the functions of an existing
government department;
-
whether there are other bodies that carry out similar or complementary functions and, if so,
whether the functions of the government bodies can be transferred to one of these other
bodies;
-
those government bodies for which longer term strategies may be considered, eg. delivery of
function by alternative manner; and
-
a process for the establishment of any future government bodies, which takes into
consideration the need for a new body given that existing bodies may be able to perform the
proposed functions.
A Public Interest Map  Appendix A
71
Appendix B
LIST OF GOVERNMENT BODIES FOR INCLUSION IN REVIEW BY
PORTFOLIO (2008)
MINISTERIAL PORTFOLIO
GOVERNMENT BODY
Attorney General and Justice
Animal Valuers Tribunal
Attorney General and Justice
Appeal Costs Board
Attorney General and Justice
Board of Trustees of the Funeral Benefit Trust Fund
Attorney General and Justice
Consumer Safety Committee
Attorney General and Justice
Council of the Queensland Law Society Incorporated
Attorney General and Justice
Disaster Appeals Trust Fund Committee
Attorney General and Justice
Dispute Resolution Centres Council
Attorney General and Justice
Land and Resources Tribunal
Attorney General and Justice
Land Court
Attorney General and Justice
Land Tribunal (Aboriginal)
Attorney General and Justice
Land Tribunal (Torres Strait Islander)
Attorney General and Justice
Law Reform Commission
Attorney General and Justice
Legal Aid Board & Legal Aid Queensland
Attorney General and Justice
Legal Practice Committee
Attorney General and Justice
Legal Practitioners Admissions Board
Attorney General and Justice
Legal Services Commission
Attorney General and Justice
Professional Standards Council
Attorney General and Justice
Public Advocate
Attorney General and Justice
Public Trust Office Investment Board
Attorney General and Justice
Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages
Attorney General and Justice
Supreme Court Library Committee
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
ATSI Appeals Tribunal (Land Holdings)
Australian South Sea Islander Community Foundation
Complaints Management Quality Committee
Darling Downs/South West Queensland Regional
Disability Council
Disability Council of Queensland
Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Committee
Far North Queensland Regional Disability Council
Fitzroy/Central West Queensland Regional Disability
Council
Forde Foundation Board of Advice
Gold Coast Regional Disability Council
Greater Brisbane Regional Disability Council
Island Industries Board (IIB)
A Public Interest Map  Appendix B
72
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Communities, Disability Services, A&TSIP,
Multicultural Affairs, Seniors and Youth
Level 2 Redress Panel
Education, Training and the Arts
Aboriginal Centre for Performing Arts Pty Ltd
Education, Training and the Arts
Art and Place Curatorial Panel
Education, Training and the Arts
Aviation Australia
Education, Training and the Arts
Board of the Queensland College of Teachers
Education, Training and the Arts
Board of the Queensland Museum
Education, Training and the Arts
Board of Trustees of the Brisbane Girls' Grammar
School
Board of Trustees of the Brisbane Grammar School
Education, Training and the Arts
Education, Training and the Arts
Education, Training and the Arts
Education, Training and the Arts
Mackay/Whitsunday Regional Disability Council
Ministerial Advisory Council on Domestic and Family
Violence
Moreton Regional Disability Council
Multicultural Community Ministerial Advisory
Committee
North Queensland Regional Disability Council
Palm Island Community Company
Queensland Compact Joint Governance Committee
Queensland Seniors Council
Queensland Youth Council
Sunshine Coast Regional Disability Council
Wide Bay Burnett Regional Disability Council
Board of Trustees of the Ipswich Girls' Grammar
School
Board of Trustees of the Ipswich Grammar School
Education, Training and the Arts
Board of Trustees
Grammar School
Board of Trustees
School
Board of Trustees
School
Board of Trustees
Education, Training and the Arts
Council of Griffith University
Education, Training and the Arts
Council of James Cook University
Education, Training and the Arts
Council of the Central Queensland University
Education, Training and the Arts
Council of the Queensland University of Technology
Education, Training and the Arts
Council of the University of Southern Queensland
Education, Training and the Arts
Council of the University of the Sunshine Coast
Education, Training and the Arts
Gold Coast Institute of TAFE Board
Education, Training and the Arts
Library Board of Queensland
Education, Training and the Arts
Major Brisbane Festival Pty Ltd
Education, Training and the Arts
Non-State Schools Accreditation Board
Education, Training and the Arts
Non-State Schools Eligibility for Government Funding
Committee
Education, Training and the Arts
Education, Training and the Arts
of the Rockhampton Girls'
of the Rockhampton Grammar
of the Toowoomba Grammar
of the Townsville Grammar School
A Public Interest Map  Appendix B
73
Education, Training and the Arts
Pacific Film and Television Corporation
Education, Training and the Arts
Queensland Art Gallery Board of Trustees
Education, Training and the Arts
Queensland Music Festival Pty Ltd
Education, Training and the Arts
Queensland Performing Arts Trust and Director
Education, Training and the Arts
Queensland Studies Authority
Education, Training and the Arts
Queensland Theatre Company
Education, Training and the Arts
Senate of the University of Queensland
Education, Training and the Arts
Southbank Institute of Technology (Board)
Education, Training and the Arts
Education, Training and the Arts
The Building and Construction Industry Training Fund
(BCITF) (Qld)
Training and Employment Recognition Council
Education, Training and the Arts
Training Ombudsman
Emergency Services
Emergency Services Advisory Council
Emergency Services
Rural Fire Advisory Council
Health
Banana Health Community Council
Health
Bayside Health Community Council
Health
Bowen Health Community Council
Health
Bundaberg Health Community Council
Health
Bundaberg Health Services Foundation
Health
Cairns Health Community Council
Health
Cape York Health Community Council
Health
Central Highlands Health Community Council
Health
Central West Health Community Council
Health
Charleville Health Community Council
Health
Charters Towers Health Community Council
Health
Chiropractors Board of Queensland
Health
Chiropractors Panel of Assessors
Health
Dental Auxiliaries Panel of Assessors
Health
Dental Board of Queensland
Health
Dental Panel of Assessors
Health
Dental Prosthetists Panel of Assessors
Health
Health
Dental Technicians and Dental Prosthetists Board of
Queensland
Dental Technicians Panel of Assessors
Health
Far North Queensland Hospital Foundation
Health
Fraser Coast Health Community Council
Health
Gladstone Health Community Council
Health
Gold Coast Health Community Council
Health
Gold Coast Hospital Foundation
Health
Gympie Health Community Council
Health
Health
Health Consumers Queensland Ministerial Consumer
Advisory Committee
Health Quality and Complaints Commission
Health
Innisfail Health Community Council
Health
Ipswich Hospital Foundation
Health
Logan-Beaudesert Health Community Council
A Public Interest Map  Appendix B
74
Health
Mackay Health Community Council
Health
Medical Board of Queensland
Health
Medical Practitioners Panel of Assessors
Health
Medical Radiation Technologists Board of Queensland
Health
Medical Radiation Technologists Panel of Assessors
Health
Mental Health Court
Health
Mental Health Review Tribunal
Health
Moranbah Health Community Council
Health
Mount Isa Health Community Council
Health
North Burnett Health Community Council
Health
Northern Downs Health Community Council
Health
Occupational Therapists Board of Queensland
Health
Occupational Therapists Panel of Assessors
Health
Office of Health Practitioner Registrations Boards
Health
Office of the Medical Board of Queensland
Health
Optometrists Board of Queensland
Health
Optometrists Panel of Assessors
Health
Osteopaths Board of Queensland
Health
Osteopaths Panel of Assessors
Health
PA Foundation
Health
Pharmacists Board of Queensland
Health
Pharmacists Panel of Assessors
Health
Physiotherapists Board of Queensland
Health
Physiotherapists Panel of Assessors
Health
Podiatrists Board of Queensland
Health
Podiatrists Panel of Assessors
Health
Health
Princess Alexandra Hospital Health Community
Council
Psychologists Board of Queensland
Health
Psychologists Panel of Assessors
Health
Public Panel of Assessors
Health
Queen Elizabeth II Hospital Health Community
Council
Queensland Institute of Medical Research Trust
Health
Health
Health
Queensland Ministerial Advisory Committee on
HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C and Sexual Health
Queensland Nursing Council
Health
Radiation Advisory Council
Health
Redcliffe Hospital Foundation
Health
Redcliffe-Caboolture Health Community Council
Health
Rockhampton Health Community Council
Health
Roma Health Community Council
Health
Health
Royal Brisbane and Women's Health Community
Council
Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital Research
Foundation
Royal Children's Hospital Foundation
Health
Royal Children's Hospital Health Community Council
Health
Rural Health Advisory Council
Health
A Public Interest Map  Appendix B
75
Health
South Burnett Health Community Council
Health
Southern Downs Health Community Council
Health
Speech Pathologists Board of Queensland
Health
Speech Pathologists Panel of Assessors
Health
Sunshine Coast Health Community Council
Health
Sunshine Coast Health Foundation
Health
Tablelands Health Community Council
Health
The Council of the Queensland Institute of Medical
Research
The Prince Charles Hospital Foundation
Health
Health
Health
The Prince Charles Hospital Health Community
Council
Toowoomba Health Community Council
Health
Toowoomba Hospital Foundation
Health
Health
Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula Area Health
Community Council
Townsville Health Community Council
Health
Townsville Hospital Foundation
Health
West Moreton Health Community Council
Infrastructure & Planning
Building and Development Tribunals (and Referees)
Infrastructure & Planning
Infrastructure & Planning
City North Infrastructure (CNI) Pty Ltd
Douglas & Noosa Development Assessment Panels
(Iconic Places)
Gladstone Economic and Industry Development
Board
LinkWater
Infrastructure & Planning
Plumbers and Drainers Board
Infrastructure & Planning
Queensland Manufactured Water Authority
Infrastructure & Planning
Queensland Water Commission
Infrastructure & Planning
Queensland Water Infrastructure Pty Ltd
Infrastructure & Planning
SEQ Water Grid Manager
Infrastructure & Planning
Sure Smart Water Pty Ltd
Infrastructure & Planning
Urban Land Development Authority
Infrastructure & Planning
Water Infrastructure Project Board
Mains Roads & Local Government
Central Queensland Ministerial Regional Community
Forum
Darling Downs/South West Ministerial Regional
Community Forum
Far North Queensland Ministerial Regional
Community Forum
Gold Coast Ministerial Regional Community Forum
Infrastructure & Planning
Infrastructure & Planning
Mains Roads & Local Government
Mains Roads & Local Government
Mains Roads & Local Government
Mains Roads & Local Government
Mains Roads & Local Government
Greater Brisbane Ministerial Regional Community
Forum
Local Government Electoral and Boundaries Review
Commissions
Local Government Grants Commission
Mains Roads & Local Government
Local Government Remuneration Tribunal
Mains Roads & Local Government
Mackay/Whitsunday Ministerial Regional Community
Forum
Moreton Ministerial Regional Community Forum
Mains Roads & Local Government
Mains Roads & Local Government
A Public Interest Map  Appendix B
76
Mains Roads & Local Government
Mains Roads & Local Government
North Queensland Ministerial Regional Community
Forum
Queensland Motorways Ltd
Mains Roads & Local Government
Queensland Motorways Ltd - Logan Motorway Co. Ltd
Mains Roads & Local Government
Queensland Motorways Ltd - Port Motorway Ltd
Mains Roads & Local Government
Queensland Motorways Ltd - Queensland Motorways
Management Pty Ltd
Queensland Motorways Ltd - The Gateway Bridge
Company Limited
Sunshine Coast Ministerial Regional Community
Forum
Transmax Pty Ltd
Mains Roads & Local Government
Mains Roads & Local Government
Mains Roads & Local Government
Mains Roads & Local Government
Wide Bay/Burnett Ministerial Regional Community
Forum
Mines and Energy
Board of Examiners (Coal Mining Safety & Health Act)
Mines and Energy
Mines and Energy
Board of Examiners (Mining & Quarrying Safety &
Health Act)
Capricornia Regional Electricity Council
Mines and Energy
Coal Mining Safety and Health Advisory Council
Mines and Energy
Energy Ombudsman Advisory Council
Mines and Energy
Energy Ombudsman Queensland
Mines and Energy
Far North Queensland Regional Electricity Council
Mines and Energy
Mackay Regional Electricity Council
Mines and Energy
Mining Safety and Health Advisory Council
Mines and Energy
North Queensland Regional Electricity Council
Mines and Energy
South-East Queensland Regional Electricity Council
Mines and Energy
South-West Queensland Regional Electricity Council
Mines and Energy
Wide Bay-Burnett Regional Electricity Council
Mines and Energy
ZeroGen Pty Ltd
Natural Resources and Water
Avondale Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Babinda Swamp Drainage Board
Natural Resources and Water
Benleith Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Bollon South Water Authority
Natural Resources and Water
Bollon West Water Authority
Natural Resources and Water
Bones Knob Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Boonah Shire River Improvement Trust
Natural Resources and Water
Boondooma Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Brigooda Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Burdekin Shire Rivers Improvement Trust
Natural Resources and Water
Cairns River Improvement Trust
Natural Resources and Water
Callandoon Water Supply Board
Natural Resources and Water
Cape York Peninsula Regional Advisory Committee
Natural Resources and Water
Natural Resources and Water
Cape York Peninsula Scientific and Cultural Advisory
Committee
Cardwell Shire River Improvement Trust
Natural Resources and Water
Clifton Shire River Improvement Trust
Natural Resources and Water
Condamine Plains Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Coreen Water Board
A Public Interest Map  Appendix B
77
Natural Resources and Water
Cowley Drainage Board
Natural Resources and Water
Crowley Vale Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Don River Improvement Trust
Natural Resources and Water
Dumaresq - Barwon Border Rivers Commission
Natural Resources and Water
Dundowran-Nikenbah Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
East Deeral Drainage Board
Natural Resources and Water
East Euramo Drainage Board
Natural Resources and Water
Eugun Bore Water Authority
Natural Resources and Water
Fernlee Water Authority
Natural Resources and Water
Gladstone Area Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Glamorgan Vale Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Grevillea Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Herbert River Improvement Trust
Natural Resources and Water
Ingie Water Authority
Natural Resources and Water
Ipswich Rivers Improvement Trust
Natural Resources and Water
Johnstone Shire River Improvement Trust
Natural Resources and Water
Jondaryan Shire River Improvement Trust
Natural Resources and Water
Juandah Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Kaywanna Bore Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Kelsey Creek Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Kooingal Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Natural Resources and Water
Lower Balonne Ministerial Water Resources Advisory
Council
Lower Herbert Water Management Authority
Natural Resources and Water
Marathon Bore Water Supply Board
Natural Resources and Water
Matthews Road Drainage Board
Natural Resources and Water
Merlwood Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Middle Park Bore Water Supply Board
Natural Resources and Water
Mount Isa Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Mourilyan Drainage Board
Natural Resources and Water
Mulgildie Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Murray-Darling Basin Commission
Natural Resources and Water
Myall Plains Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
North Burdekin Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Oaky Creek Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Orchard Creek Drainage Board
Natural Resources and Water
Palmgrove Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Pioneer River Improvement Trust
Natural Resources and Water
Pioneer Valley Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Queensland Great Artesian Basin Advisory Council
Natural Resources and Water
Referral Panel (Moratorium)
Natural Resources and Water
Referral Panel (Resource Operations Plan)
Natural Resources and Water
Riversdale-Murray Valley Management Board
Natural Resources and Water
Roadvale Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Silkwood Drainage Board
Natural Resources and Water
Six Mile Creek Water Supply Board
Natural Resources and Water
Smithfield Drainage Board
A Public Interest Map  Appendix B
78
Natural Resources and Water
South Burdekin Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
South Maroochy Drainage Board
Natural Resources and Water
Stagnant Creek Drainage Board
Natural Resources and Water
Stanthorpe Shire River Improvement Trust
Natural Resources and Water
Natural Resources and Water
State Rural Leasehold Land Ministerial Advisory
Committee
Surveyors Board of Queensland (and Disciplinary
Committee and Professional Conduct Review Panel)
Taberna Bore Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Valuers Registration Board of Queensland
Natural Resources and Water
Wambo Shire River Improvement Trust
Natural Resources and Water
Wanda Creek Drainage Board
Natural Resources and Water
Warrubullen Drainage Board
Natural Resources and Water
Warwick Shire River Improvement Trust
Natural Resources and Water
Washpool Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Weengallon Water Authority
Natural Resources and Water
Whitsunday Rivers Improvement Trust
Natural Resources and Water
Woodmillar Water Board
Natural Resources and Water
Yambocully Water Board
Police, Corrective Services & Sport
Police, Corrective Services & Sport
Central and Northern Queensland Regional Parole
Board
Controlled Operations Committee
Police, Corrective Services & Sport
Gold Coast Events Co Pty Ltd (GCEC)
Police, Corrective Services & Sport
Lexmark Indy Corporation Queensland
Police, Corrective Services & Sport
Mt Gravatt Showground Trust
Police, Corrective Services & Sport
Prostitution Licensing Authority
Police, Corrective Services & Sport
Public Interest Monitor
Police, Corrective Services & Sport
Queensland Academy of Sport Board of Management
Police, Corrective Services & Sport
Queensland Parole Board
Police, Corrective Services & Sport
Police, Corrective Services & Sport
Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association
(RNA)
Southern Queensland Regional Parole Board
Police, Corrective Services & Sport
Stadiums Queensland
Police, Corrective Services & Sport
Suncorp Management Advisory Committee
Premier
Child Death Case Review Committee
Premier
Clean Coal Council
Premier
Family Responsibilities Board
Premier
Family Responsibilities Commission
Premier
Premier's Council on Climate Change
Premier
Queensland's 150th Celebrations Advisory Committee
Premier
South Bank Corporation
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Agricultural Chemicals Distribution Control Board
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Animal Ethics Committee
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Animal Welfare Advisory Committee
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Australian Agricultural College Corporation Advisory
Board
Natural Resources and Water
A Public Interest Map  Appendix B
79
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Biosecurity Advisory Council Queensland
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Chicken Meat Industry Committee
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Community Consultative Committee for the Control of
Exotic Pest Fish
Crab Management Advisory Committee
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Darling Downs-Moreton Rabbit Board
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Forestry Plantations Queensland Advisory Board
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Freshwater Fisheries Management Advisory
Committee
Gulf of Carpentaria Management Advisory Committee
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Harvest Management Advisory Committee
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Industrial Hemp Advisory Committee
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Inshore Finfish Management Advisory Committee
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Land Protection (Pest and Stock Route Management)
Council
Queensland Food, Fibre and Agribusiness Council
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Queensland Rural Adjustment Authority
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Reef Management Advisory Committee
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Rural Skills, Training and Labour Industry Advisory
Group
Safe Food Production QLD (Safe Food)
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Trawl Management Advisory Committee
Primary Industries and Fisheries
Veterinary Surgeons Board of Queensland
Public Works, Housing & ICT
Board of Architects of Queensland
Public Works, Housing & ICT
Board of Professional Engineers of Queensland
Public Works, Housing & ICT
Brisbane Housing Company
Public Works, Housing & ICT
CSI Holdings Pty Ltd
Public Works, Housing & ICT
Public Records Review Committee
Public Works, Housing & ICT
Queensland Building Services Authority
Public Works, Housing & ICT
Public Works, Housing & ICT
Queensland Community Housing Standards and
Accreditation Council
Residential Tenancies Authority
Public Works, Housing & ICT
State Procurement Advisory Council
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Board of Trustees of Newstead House
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Brisbane Forest Park Advisory Planning Board
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
CEOs Committee for Natural Resource Management
in South East Queensland
Coastal Protection Advisory Council
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Crocodile Management Advisory Committee
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
EPA Animal Ethics Committee
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Fraser Island World Heritage Area Community
Advisory Committee
Fraser Island World Heritage Area Indigenous
Advisory Committee
Fraser Island World Heritage Area Management
Committee
Fraser Island World Heritage Area Scientific Advisory
Committee
Heron Island Management Board
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Heron Island Management Committee
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
A Public Interest Map  Appendix B
80
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Horse Trails Scientific Advisory Committee
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Jurisdictional Projects Group (Qld)
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Macropod Advisory Committee
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
National Trust of Queensland
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Newry Island Management Advisory Committee
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Proserpine Rock Wallaby Recovery Team
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Queensland Heritage Council
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Queensland Sustainable Energy Advisory Council
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Queensland Youth Environment Council
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Regional Consultative Group for the MackayWhitsunday Regional Coastal
Riversleigh Community Scientific Advisory Committee
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
South East Queensland Healthy Waterways
Partnership Board
Tweed River Entrance Sand Bypassing Project
Advisory Committee
Waanyi Ministerial Advisory Committee
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Wet Tropics Management Authority
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Wet Tropics Management Authority Aboriginal Advisory Committee
Wet Tropics Management Authority Community Consultative Committee
Wet Tropics Management Authority Conservation Sector Liaison Group
Wet Tropics Management Authority Scientific Advisory Committee
Wet Tropics Management Authority Tourism Industry Liaison Group
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
Rainforest
Wet Tropics
Wet Tropics
Wet Tropics
Wet Tropics
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
Australian Institute for Commercialisation Pty Ltd
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
BioPharmaceuticals Australia (Network) Pty Ltd
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
Creative Industries Leadership Group
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
Environment Industry Reference Group
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
Fibre Composites Forum
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
Food Industry Advisory Council
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
i.lab Incubator Pty Ltd Board
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
ICT Ministerial Advisory Group
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
Manufacturing Leaders Group
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
Queensland Biotechnology Advisory Council
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
Queensland Marine Industries Reference Group
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
Queensland Small Business Advisory Council
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
Queensland Tourism Strategy Implementation
Steering Committee
Smart State Council
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
teQstart Pty Ltd
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
Tourism Queensland
Tourism, Regional Development and Industry
Wine Industry Development Strategy Steering
Committee
Transport, Trade, Employment and Industrial
Relations
Transport, Trade, Employment and Industrial
Relations
Anzac Day Trust
Building and Construction Industry (Portable Long
Service Leave) Board
A Public Interest Map  Appendix B
81
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Cardiac Assessment Tribunal
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Composite Medical Assessment Tribunal
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Construction Sector Standing Committee
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Contract Cleaning Industry (Portable Long Service
Leave) Authority
Dermatology Assessment Tribunal
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Disfigurement Assessment Tribunal
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Ear, Nose and Throat Assessment Tribunal
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Electrical Equipment Committee
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Electrical Licensing Committee
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Electrical Safety Board
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Electrical Safety Education Committee
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Employment Agents Advisory Committee
Trade, Employment and Industrial
General Medical Assessment Tribunal
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Health and Community Services Sector Standing
Committee
Indonesia-Queensland Advisory Committee
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Licensing Review Committee
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Manufacturing Sector Standing Committee
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Maritime Safety Marine Board
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Neurology/Neurosurgical Assessment Tribunal
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Ophthalmology Assessment Tribunal
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Orthopaedic Assessment Tribunal
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Queensland China Council
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Queensland Education and Training International
Board
Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export
Agency Advisory Board
Queensland Industrial Relations Commission
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Queensland Road Safety Committee
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Queensland Trade Investment Pty Ltd
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Queensland Transport and Logistics Council
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Queensland Workplace Rights Ombudsman
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Retail and Wholesale Sector Standing Committee
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Rural Sector Standing Committee
Trade, Employment and Industrial
A Public Interest Map  Appendix B
82
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Transport,
Relations
Trade, Employment and Industrial
TransLink Transit Authority
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Transport and Storage Sector Standing Committee
Trade, Employment and Industrial
WorkCover Queensland Board
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Workers' Compensation Regulatory Authority (QCOMP) Board
Workplace Health and Safety Board
Trade, Employment and Industrial
Treasurer
Breakwater Island Casino Community Benefit Fund
Treasurer
Burnett Water Pty Ltd
Treasurer
DBCT Holdings Pty Ltd
Treasurer
Gambling Community Benefit Committee
Treasurer
Greyhounds Queensland Limited
Treasurer
Jupiters Casino Community Benefit Fund
Treasurer
Motor Accident Insurance Commission
Treasurer
Nominal Defendant
Treasurer
Queensland Bulk Water Supply Authority
Treasurer
Queensland Bulk Water Transport Authority
Treasurer
Queensland Competition Authority
Treasurer
Queensland Future Growth Corporation
Treasurer
Queensland Gaming Commission
Treasurer
Queensland Harness Racing Limited
Treasurer
Racing Animal Welfare and Integrity Board
Treasurer
Red Tape Reduction Taskforce
Treasurer
Reef Casino Community Benefit Fund
Treasurer
Trustees of the Parklands Gold Coast
A Public Interest Map  Appendix B
83
Appendix C
OVERVIEW OF QUEENSLAND BODIES BY
SECTOR, TYPE AND CATEGORY (2008)
TYPE OF BODY
SECTOR
NUMBER
OF
BODIES
GROUPS OF BODIES – Welcome
Aboard categories
ECONOMIC 14%
(64)
Industrial
Relations
29
Commercial
18
Financial
9
Trade
6
Tourism
2
Water
77
Primary
Industries
25
Natural
Resources
16
Environmental/
Sustainability
32
Land
10
1 Commercial/ Trading,
1 Governing
4 Regulatory, registration or appeal;
11 Policy, review or specialist bodies with
determinative powers;
12 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory
only
4 Commercial/ Trading,
1 Governing
2 Policy, review or specialist bodies with
determinative powers;
11 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory
only
3 Commercial/ Trading,
2 Regulatory, registration or appeal;
4 Policy, review or specialist bodies with
determinative powers
1 Commercial/ Trading,
5 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory only
1 Commercial/ Trading,
1 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory only
71 Commercial/ Trading,
2 Governing
1 Regulatory, registration or appeal;
3 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory only
3 Regulatory, registration or appeal;
3 Policy, review or specialist bodies with
determinative powers;
19 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory
only
1 Commercial/ Trading,
4 Policy, review or specialist bodies with
determinative powers;
11 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory
only
1 Commercial/ Trading,
2 Regulatory, registration or appeal;
6 Policy, review or specialist bodies with
determinative powers;
23 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory
only
1 Governing
6 Regulatory, registration or appeal; Policy,
3 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory only
ENVIRONMENT &
RESOURCES 35%
(160)
A Public Interest Map  Appendix C
84
INFRASTRUCTURE
7.0% (32)
LAW & JUSTICE
4.5% (20)
SOCIAL 39.5%
(181)
Planning
8
Transport
4
Main Roads
Public Works
6
4
Water
10
Legal
13
Police
Crime
Corrective
Services
Licensing
2
0
3
Education
26
Health/Medical
90
Arts/Culture
11
Housing
4
Communities
41
Emergency
Services
Sport & Rec
3
2
6
4 Governing
1 Regulatory, registration or appeal;
2 Policy, review or specialist bodies with
determinative powers;
1 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory only
1 Commercial/ Trading,
3 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory only
6 Commercial/ Trading
2 Commercial/ Trading,
2 Regulatory, registration or appeal
6 Commercial/ Trading,
3 Governing Regulatory,
1 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory only
3 Governing
2 Regulatory, registration or appeal;
4 Policy, review or specialist bodies with
determinative powers;
4 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory only
2 Governing
3 Policy, review or specialist bodies with
determinative powers
1 Governing
1 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory only
4 Commercial/ Trading,
16 Governing
3 Regulatory, registration or appeal;
2 Policy, review or specialist bodies with
determinative powers;
1 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory only
13 Commercial/ Trading,
2 Governing
30 Regulatory, registration or appeal;
3 Policy, review or specialist bodies with
determinative powers;
42 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory
only
4 Commercial/ Trading,
4 Governing
3 Policy, review or specialist bodies with
determinative powers
1 Commercial/ Trading,
2 Regulatory, registration or appeal;
1 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory only
2 Commercial/ Trading,
3 Governing
1 Regulatory, registration or appeal;
4 Policy, review or specialist bodies with
determinative powers;
31 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory
only
1 Governing
2 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory only
2 Commercial/ Trading,
2 Governing
2 Policy, review or specialist bodies advisory only
A Public Interest Map  Appendix C
85
Appendix D
QUEENSLAND BODIES BY EXPENDITURE AND REVENUE (2008)
Classification by expenditure
The big spenders (over $1M) - 23% of bodies
Of 435 bodies 99 have expenditure of $1m or more.
There are 12 bodies that spend in excess of $100M each and half of these are Universities, individual
expenditure are detailed below:
Body
WorkCover Queensland (Board)
Senate of the University of Queensland
South East Queensland Water Grid Manager
Council of Qld University of Technology
Council of Griffith University
Council of Central Queensland University
Council of James Cook University
QRAA
Council of the University of Southern Qld
Queensland Building Services Authority
Legal Aid
ZeroGen
Portfolio
DEIR
DETA
DIP
DETA
DETA
DETA
DETA
DPI&F
DETA
Housing
JAG
DME
Expenditure($M)
1,196
1,080
711
506
475
245
236
229
167
135
114
102
It is important to note how the universities are funded as the State Government’s contribution is
relatively small.
For example, the University of Queensland’s expenditure is $1,080M and receives $1,162M in revenue.
This revenue is funded from: the Australian Government and HECS (approximately $600M), fees &
charges (approximately $170M) and other revenue including investments and consultancies
(approximately $350M). The combined contribution from the Queensland Government and local
governments is $43M, approximately 4% of UQ’s overall revenue.
The State Government’s contributions to the other universities on this list are of a similar.
The bodies that spend in a range from $1M up to $100M are as follows:

6 bodies spend in a range from $50M up to $100M

22 bodies spend in a range from $10M up to $50M

12 bodies spend in a range from $5M up to $10M

23 bodies spend in a range from $2M up to $5M

24 bodies spend in a range from $1M up to $2M
The medium spenders ($100k to $1M) - 16% of bodies
There are 71 medium spender bodies. Fifteen bodies spend from $500,000 up to $1M and 56 bodies
spend from $100,000 up to $500,000.
The low spenders ($1 to $100,000) - 46% of bodies
There are 198 low spender bodies.
Zero expenditure - 15% of bodies
Sixty seven bodies have no expenditure at all. The nature of these bodies tends to be Advisory
Committees and/or advisory boards.
A Public Interest Map  Appendix D
86
Classification by revenue
Overall this provides a similar set of results to the classifications by expenditure, although there are
some differences.
Bodies with large revenues (over $1M) - 23% of bodies
There are 100 bodies of the 435 assessed with revenues in excess of $1M.
There are five bodies with revenue in excess of $500M.
Body
Future Growth Corporation
Senate of the University of Queensland
WorkCover Queensland (Board)
Council of Qld University of Technology
Council of Griffith University





Portfolio
DETA
DEIR
DETA
DETA
Revenue($M)
1,349
1,162
901
500
500
8 bodies have incomes of between $100M and $500M – 3 universities (James Cook, Central
Queensland and Southern Queensland), QRAA, the SEQ Grid Water Manager, the Legal Aid
Board, ZeroGen and the Queensland Building Authority
7 bodies have incomes of $50M up to $100M
20 bodies have incomes of $10M up to $50M
14 bodies have incomes of $5M up to $10M
46 bodies have incomes of $1M up to $5M
Those with medium revenues ($100k to $1M) - 14% of bodies
There are 61 medium revenue bodies. Fifteen bodies have incomes of $500,000 up to $1M and 46
bodies have incomes of $100,000 up to $500,000
Those with low revenues ($1 to $100,000) - 32% of bodies
There are 139 bodies that have low revunues.
Zero expenditure - 31% of bodies
There are 135 bodies that have no revenue. Similar to the expenditure of bodies the nature of these
bodies tends to be Advisory Committees and/or advisory boards.
A Public Interest Map  Appendix D
87
Appendix E
CURRENT ORGANISATIONAL FORM OPTIONS IN QUEENSLAND (2008)
Organisational
Form
Department
Separate legal
entity
Under an Act
Reasons for
creation (typically)
Yes - Public Service
Act 2008 states that
departments are
declared by
Governor in Council
and gazette notice
Carry out the
functions of
government
Any formal
guidance on
whether to create
CBUs
Responsibilities set
out in s.36 of Public
Services Act 2008;
and the FAAA7
Statutory
Authority
Trusts1
Statutory Body
Corporation Sole
GOCs
Public
Pty Ltd
No – part of a
department but may
have a business
name registered
No – they are part
of their sponsoring
department
No – legally part of
department,
statutory authority
or statutory body
No
Yes, but for
reporting purposes
part of a department
(or a statutory body)
Yes – under
individual enabling
legislation
Yes
Depends on the
type of trust2
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes - under
individual enabling
legislation
Yes – governed
under the Trust Act
1973
Yes – under
individual enabling
legislation
Yes - governed
under the
Corporations Act
2001
Yes - governed
under the
Corporations Act
2001
Value for money for
government
services using
commercial
principles
Advice on specific
areas of interest
Board oversight of
certain functions
Flexibility and
independence
whilst under
Government
umbrella
Trust account for
quarantining monies
from other operating
funds.
SPVs to deliver
infrastructure
Commercial focus,
spread of control,
able to be sold
Yes4
No
No
No
No
Authority is vested
in one nominated
office holder, rather
than a board of
directors created to
undertake specific
activities as set out
in their enabling
legislation
No
Yes – governed
under the
Corporations Act
2001 and GOC
Act3; established
under GOC Act
Fully
commercialised
operations
Governor in Council
or Minister
depending on
individual enabling
legislation
Limited – as defined
by establishing Act
Governor in Council
or Minister
depending on
individual enabling
legislation
Limited – as defined
by establishing Act
Trustee appointed
by department
Governor in Council
or Ministers as set
out in their
individual enabling
legislation
Powers usually set
out in legislation
and may not be
unlimited
Governor in Council
(as per GOCs)
Responsibilities set
out in s.36 of Public
Services Act 2008;
FAAA
Minister, CEO,
Governor in
Council, depending
on type and entity
they belong to
Responsibilities set
out in s.36 of Public
Services Act 2008;
FAAA
Member -Board
Appointment by
Governor in Council
or Minister6
Minister’s powers
Companies/SPVs
Committees (or
advisory
councils)
Limited by trust
deed or enabling
legislation
Qld public sector
does not have any
public listed stock
exchange
companies
Yes5
(greater fundraising
flexibility for public
companies as set in
the Corporations
Act 2001)
The power of the
Minister would
depend on what is
written in the
constitution of the
company
Yes5
(Corporations Act
2001 sets
thresholds for
differentiating a
large or small pty ltd
company and
limitations on
fundraising)
Procedure for
appointing
members set out in
the company’s own
constitution
The power of the
Minister would
depend on what is
written in the
constitution of the
company
Governed by the
Corporations Act
2001 requirements
and limitations in
the GOC Act
Governor in Council
Limited – written
direction only
A Public Interest Map  Appendix E
88
Organisational
Form
Funds
Department
Only departments
can receive
appropriation
CBUs
Appropriation as
part of their
department
Companies/SPVs
Committees (or
advisory
councils)
Funding depends
on individual
committee/board
and specific
legislation
Statutory
Authority
Does not control
own funds nor
receives
appropriation
Statutory Body
Controls own funds,
does not receive
appropriation –
apply for grants and
trading activities
Trusts1
No appropriation
funding. Funding
source depends on
the type of trust and
its purpose.
Corporation Sole
No appropriation
unless designated
as a department
under an Act e.g.
Forestry Plantations
Queensland.
GOCs
Public
Pty Ltd
No appropriation
No appropriation
3 potential sources
of funds – equity,
grat. or loan or a
combination of any
of the 3.
Controls funds, no
appropriation
SBFA applicable to
the statutory body
as a trustee, FAAA
applicable to the
departments who
set up the trust
account or trust. A
trust is governed by
its trust deed.
Depends on the
type of trust – e.g. if
it holds property it
may carry out a
rental activity
Yes
FAAA or SBFA is
only applicable if
their enabling
legislation states
that it is
No
Under the
Corporations Act
2001, must be
solvent at all times.
Therefore must
control their own
funds; however
another entity may
perform
administrative,
investment
functions for them.
Raise funds through
capital injections,
operating revenue
and grants.
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
The reporting
requirements for
trusts are set out in
their individual trust
deeds
Depends on type of
entity for reporting
purposes
Large yes
small no.
All audited by the
Auditor General if
they are public
sector entities
If small no unless
required to under
their constitution,
Corporations Act
2001 requirements
or by specific
direction.
Yes
Yes
Large yes
small no.
All audited by the
Auditor General if
they are public
sector entities
Depends on
constitution and
Corporations Act
2001 requirements
Relevant policies
apply e.g. only have
regard to the
Financial Reporting
Requirements
s.98(2)(b) of the
Financial
Management
Standard
Depends on trust
deed and if the trust
is set up by a
department or other
entity type
Yes if they are
declared a
department for
reporting purposes
some policies will
apply. Otherwise all
policies may not
apply.
Limited
Limited
Ministerial direction
in writing
Administered by a
trustee.
FAAA and SBFA8
apply
Yes – FAAA only
Yes – FAAA only
Yes - same as their
parent entity,
department or
statutory body
Yes – FAAA only
Yes – FAAA &
SBFA
Can it be a ‘trading
body’
Yes, can undertake
some commercial
activity
Yes
No
Yes – depends on
their purpose
Yes
Audited by AuditorGeneral
Yes
Yes
Depends on
individual
committee/board
Yes
Yes
Annual reports
Yes
Yes
Depends on
individual
committee/board
Relevant
government policies
apply
In full
In full
Depends on
individual
committee/board
May not produce an
annual report.
Reporting
provisions set out in
the enabling
legislation or may
have a Treasurer’s
exemption
In full - if statutory
authority is part of a
department. Only
have regard to
some if part of a
statutory body
Apply for grants and
source own funds.
Raise funds through
capital injections,
operating revenue
and grants.
Community Service
Obligations
undertaken by the
GOC are funded by
the state.
Not applicable to
GOCs. Only the
GOC Act applicable
which refers to
sections of the
FAAA and may
modify them
Yes
A Public Interest Map  Appendix E
89
Organisational
Form
Department
CBUs
Companies/SPVs
Committees (or
advisory
councils)
Statutory
Authority
Trusts1
Statutory Body
Corporation Sole
GOCs
Public
Pty Ltd
Corporations Act
(Cth) apply
ASIC oversight
Application of ASX
principles9
APRA regulation
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
Examples of form
Traditional portfolio
departments
Business unit that
forms part of
relevant department
eg Project Services,
Queensland
Property
Management
Boards,
Committees,
Councils, Groups,
Forums
e.g. Electrical
Safety Board,
Creative Industries
Leadership Group,
Fibre Composites
Forum
Boards, Trusts
eg Family
Responsibilities
Board, Board of
Trustees of the
Funeral Benefit
Trust Fund
WorkCover
Queensland
influenced by APRA
capital requirements
Authority,
Corporation,
instrumentality or
office
eg Urban Land
Development
Authority, South
Bank Corporation,
Queensland Water
Commission, Public
Trust Office.
Trusts and
Foundations
Small specific
number of two
types: trusts created
under statute and
trusts created under
general law (trust
deed)
If they can raise
funds locally and
overseas through
issuing a
prospectus or
disclosure
document, then
they would be
classified as a
public company
ZeroGen Pty Ltd,
BioPharmaceuticals
Australia (Network)
Pty Ltd
No, except for QIC
and QSuper (in
process of
corporatisation)
Government
infrastructure and
investment entities
Eg Forde
Foundation,
Hospital
Foundations,
Funeral Benefit
Trust Fund,
Monte Carlo
Caravan Park Trust
Eg Forestry
Plantations
Queensland,
Queensland
Treasury
Corporation, Public
Trustee of
Queensland
Eg QR Ltd, Port of
Brisbane Corp. Ltd
and CS Energy
QIC
NotesThe purpose of the table at Appendix E is to provide a general diagrammatic overview of the similar and distinguishing characteristics for the various organisational forms in Queensland. This analysis assists subsequent
development of an organisational form guide, but is not designed to be relied on for any other purpose.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Refer to the Trust Act 1973, Trustee Companies Act 1968 and Trust Accounts Act 1973 to determine the difference between trust accounts where money is held in trust for an external person/entity (e.g. for legal firms or unclaimed moneys) and an entity set up
to operate as a trust investment facility (e.g. Monte Carlo Caravan Park Trust).
A trust can be a separate legal entity; however it would be the trustee who would be sued as they are responsible for running the trust.
Government Owned Corporations Act 1993.
Service Delivery Performance Commission’s recommended Guidelines for Establishing and Reviewing CBUs – these are guidelines only and therefore agencies are not required to use them.
Guidelines for the Formation, Acquisition and Post Approval Monitoring of Companies (September 2005) – these are guidelines only and therefore agencies are not required to use them.
Cabinet approval also required if the appointments are ‘significant’.
Financial Administration and Audit Act 1977.
Statutory Bodies Financial Arrangements Act 1982.
ASX’s Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations – in Queensland (as there are no public listed companies on the exchange), these ASX rules are for guidance only and their application is not mandatory.
A Public Interest Map  Appendix E
90
Appendix F
TYPES OF BODIES CAPTURED BY REVIEW (2008)
The summary below identifies bodies by the use of a body type in their title. There are a number of
types used to describe the same type of function such as providing advice.
Advisory Council or Council
There are 86 bodies that are either an Advisory Council or a Council that provide advice only. In
addition there are 12 Councils that make decisions and have determinative powers and include six
University Councils.
Committee
Fifty of 64 Committees provide advice only. The other Committees have a range of functions from
determinative powers to regulatory appeal. Some examples of the more significant Committee
include: the Child Death Case Review Committee, the Gambling Community Benefit Committee and
the Licensing Review Committee.
Forum/Group/Taskforce/Team
There are 20 bodies under these titles that provide advice only. In addition there is one body that is
commercial in nature and another has determinative powers.
Panel
There are 21 bodies, 17 have regulatory appeal functions, whilst two have governing or determinative
powers and two provide advice only.
Board
There are 109 Boards established. A number of these are boards of statutory bodies whilst others
such as the water related boards (48) are commercial in nature whilst 13 boards are advisory only.
Authority
There are 22 authorities that are governing in nature, however there are another two that provide
advice only.
Commission/Ombudsman
There are 15 bodies that are either Commissions or an Ombudsman Office (3) and are governing in
nature.
Tribunal/Court
There are 17 tribunals that are included in this review that were excluded from the QCAT review. This
includes 10 specialist Health Tribunals. In addition there are two Courts.
Trust
There are 37 Bodies that are either a Trust or a Trustee including 8 Grammar Schools Board of
Trustees and 15 River Improvements Trusts.
Foundation
There are 15 Foundation bodies. Twelve of the Foundations are Health related and associated to
individual Hospitals. There are three foundations within the Communities portfolio (including the Forde
Foundation).
Corporation
There are 4 bodies that are identified by title as corporations.
Ltd/Pty Ltd/Company
There are 30 bodies and their key activities are commercial in nature.
A Public Interest Map  Appendix F
91
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