Modification of reporting requirements in special circumstances
The Act modifies the reporting requirements applicable to most departments for Offices of Parliament and intelligence and security departments, to reflect their particular circumstances. It also requires or allows some changes in the annual reporting requirements for entities that exist for less than the full financial year.
Offices of Parliament
Offices of Parliament are required to prepare and publish information on future operating intentions and annual reports in much the same way as departments. The modified reporting requirements applying to Offices of Parliament are set out in sections 45F and 45G, and generally reflect the fact that Offices of Parliament are primarily accountable to the House of Representatives, not the Government.
Intelligence and security departments
Like other departments, intelligence and security departments are required to provide information on their future operating intentions at budget time. This information, however, is not tabled or published (sections 38 and 45E) but goes to the Intelligence and Security Committee set up under legislation to examine the policy, administration and expenditure of each intelligence and security agency. Because of the difficulties posed for audit, a statement of service performance is not required.
Intelligence and security departments are also required to prepare and present annual reports. However, these obligations are found in the department’s own enabling legislation, and provide for the removal of sensitive information prior to public release. Reporting of expenses in aggregate is permitted and no statement of service performance is required to be published (sections 45E(1)(c)(i) and 45E(1)(d).
Entities created, restructured or disestablished during the reporting period
Entities that are established in the last four months of the financial year may be exempted, by the Minister of Finance, from the requirement to prepare and present an annual report for that year (section 45I).[13] However the entity is still required to report on appropriations administered during that period, and to report on its activities, from the date of establishment, in its next annual report.
Entities that are disestablished during the financial year are required to produce a final report for the period up until disestablishment, as if it were an annual report (section 45J). In general, the entity must start work on the final report as soon as it is disestablished, and not wait until the end of the financial year. To facilitate the completion of the final report, the Minister of Finance can allow responsibility for its completion to be passed to another party.[14]
Where an entity is disestablished during a financial year and some or all of its operations are transferred to another entity, the Minister of Finance can, subject to certain criteria, give approval for that other entity to include full-year information on those operations in its own annual report (section 45L).
