CONTENTS
Changes to the Flipchart - 06 March 2023
Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman
The Finance Minister has approved the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (2023 Measures No. 1) Rules 2023. Amongst other things, this amended Schedule 1 of the PGPA Rule to repeal clause 10A, which prescribed the Fair Work Ombudsman and Registered Organisations Commission Entity (FWOROC Entity) as a listed entity for the PGPA Act. This amendment is effective from 6 March 2023. This reflects the Government’s decision to abolish the Registered Organisations Commission and Commissioner and to co-locate in the Fair Work Act 2009, the finance law arrangements for the Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman with its statutory functions.
The effect of this is that there will no longer be a single listed entity combining the Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Registered Organisations Commission, and there will be a non-corporate Commonwealth entity known as the Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman within the Employment and Workplace Relations portfolio.
Changes to the Material Status of Commonwealth Entities
The Flipchart has been updated to reflect the following changes to entity Material status:
- The Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation has been re-classified from ‘Material’ to ‘Small’.
- The Clean Energy Regulator has been re-classified from ‘Small’ to ‘Material’.
Further detail on this update is available in the Table of Changes for 2022-23. Here are the latest versions of the Flipchart and its associated List of Commonwealth entities and companies.
Feedback on the Flipchart and List and how you use these tools are always welcome and can be sent to PGPA@finance.gov.au.
Entity Start-Up Guide – Annual Review
The Department of Finance is undertaking the annual review of the Entity Start-Up Guide. The review includes reaching out to key contacts regarding their policy responsibilities and contact details.
The guide was established in 2020 following a period of extensive consultation across the Commonwealth. The guide is a web-based portal, which supports those tasked with setting up a new Commonwealth entity. It has been designed to address operational start-up matters in one place and includes a list of indicative establishment processes, which may be relevant to non-corporate and corporate Commonwealth entities. It provides relevant information to assist officials as they commence the start-up process along with relevant contact information for those entities responsible for start-up elements. The guide relies on the links to a responsible entity’s own website so the detailed information stays as up-to-date as possible.
As a part of the review, any feedback on the guide would be welcome. Feedback can be sent to PGPA@finance.gov.au.
Commonwealth Evaluation Community of Practice
The Commonwealth Evaluation Community of Practice (CoP) is open to all Commonwealth officials with a role or an interest in evaluation.
The CoP operates under a hybrid model, including both online and face-to-face communication and engagement methods allowing members from across the country to interact in ways that best suit them.
By connecting people from across the Commonwealth who are committed to working together to embed a culture of evaluation and learning, sharing information, experiences and resources, and building a supportive professional evaluation network, the CoP aims to promote better practice evaluation across the policy cycle.
A series of Lunch & Learn pilot sessions are currently underway for all CoP members, focussed on the theme of Building Evaluation Capacity. These pilot sessions are being held online at 1pm on Wednesdays through to 22 March 2023.
If you would like to become a member, and receive invitations to CoP events, please complete the member registration questionnaire.
If you have any queries in relation to the Commonwealth Evaluation CoP, please contact us at PGPA@finance.gov.au.
The Digital Annual Reporting Tool is Changing
The Department of Finance is introducing a new tool for drafting your annual report content for the 2022-23 reporting cycle. We have been working for the past 12 months with annual report coordinators from ten entities to design revised requirements for a new tool. We also trialled a number of vendor proposals with assistance from the Digital Annual Report Working Group members.
The current Digital Annual Reporting Tool was decommissioned on 1 March 2023. Finance has entered into an arrangement with Ernst & Young to develop a new user focussed Digital Reporting Tool. In the initial reporting year, features will be out-of-the-box, but functionality will improve over time with your active input and feedback.
We are looking to users of the Digital Reporting Tool to assist us in continuing to develop a tool that meets user and business needs. If you would like to participate in testing (in the second quarter of 2023) and/or User Research (after the initial reporting period), please let us know by email to dar@finance.gov.au. We would be grateful for your assistance.
Key Dates
- For those participating, testing will likely occur in May/June 2023;
- Training will commence from June 2023; and
- The new Digital Reporting Tool will be available for use from 1 July 2023.
As we progress, regular updates will be provided through this newsletter and posted to the Digital Annual Reports GovTEAMS Community.
If you are not already a member of the Community, you can sign up directly through GovTEAMS. If you need any support please email dar@finance.gov.au.
To ensure that our Digital Annual Reporting Contact List is up to date, please email any updates to dar@finance.gov.au.
Updates to structure.gov.au
Finance has made some recent updates to structure.gov.au that we thought we would share in the lead up to 2023-24 Budget.
- Budget Characteristics. Information about appropriations from recent budgets have been added and appear under the Budget Characteristics heading for organisations that receive appropriation.
- Linked Programs. Tables of incoming and outgoing program links for each Outcome have been added and the graph visualisations of these relationships have been improved.
- Distinguished Terms. Terms mentioned in the interpretation sections of legislation have been added and can be found here.
- Reporting Requirements. PGPA Act-related reporting requirements is now available for organisations on structure.gov.au. This feature is currently an alpha experience and will be extended to include more reporting-related references in legislation.
- About the Site. Background information on the site, the sources of data, and the Finance Knowledge Graph has been added and can be found here
- what kind of search interface would help improve the Distinguished Terms feature; and,
- what other reporting requirements could be included in the Reporting Requirements feature.
Tip of the Month
Did you know that the Flipchart of PGPA Act Commonwealth entities and companies is interactive? Clicking on the name of each entity on the Flipchart will take you to their webpage. The latest Flipchart can be found here.
