PGPA Newsletter 103

A new Flipchart and List of Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA Act) Commonwealth entities and companies was issued on 1 August 2024.

Both the Flipchart and List have been updated to reflect the following change to current Commonwealth entities and companies for the PGPA Act:

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation moved to Attorney-General’s portfolio
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has moved from the Home Affairs portfolio to the Attorney-General’s portfolio, reflecting the Machinery of Government change made by the amendment to the Administrative Arrangements Order on 29 July 2024.

Further detail on this update is available in the Table of Changes for 2024-25. 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 is always welcome and can be sent to PGPA@finance.gov.au.

• New obligations for officials when briefing ministers who are approvers of grants.
• Additional reporting requirements when ministers are approvers of grants, including additional requirements for reporting on GrantConnect.
• Clearer criteria for the use of one-off ad hoc grants.
• Clearer expectations that third parties involved in grants processes, including parliamentarians, are required to adhere to the key principles and applicable requirements of the CGRPs.
• Two new key principles reflecting the importance of merit-based processes, and consistency with grant guidelines and established grant administration practices.

To support users of the Digital Annual Reporting Tool, Finance has recorded a series of short videos detailing how to use certain features of the Tool.

The videos cover how to:

• Register and login for the first time
• Create chapters, sections, tables, images and
• Outline general navigation features of the tool.

Users of the Digital Annual Reporting Tool are encouraged to review these prior to drafting their annual reports.

You can find these videos on the Digital Annual Reporting GovTEAMS channel.

Please contact the Digital Annual Reporting Team to gain access to the GovTEAMS channel.

The Department of Finance (Finance) offers risk and insurance education to all Commonwealth officials – free of charge.

Risk education
Finance offers risk education across four different pathways:

• Foundation level: to support Commonwealth officials (in any role) understand basic risk management concepts. This pathway comprises two eLearning courses available through the Comcover Learning Centre
• Generalist level: to support Commonwealth officials (in any role) who are required to engage with and apply their entity’s risks management framework.
• Specialist level: to support Commonwealth officials (in a risk management role) who are required to design, implement and embed their entity’s risk management framework.
• SES level: to support SES officials (in any role) understand and manage risk from a strategic perspective.

Upcoming training sessions for the General, Specialist and SES levels are provided below:

For more information on these training sessions please visit Education or call 1800 651 540 (Option 2).

Insurance education
Finance is responsible for managing Comcover, the Australian Government’s self-managed insurance fund. All Commonwealth entities that are subject to the PGPA Act and classified to the General Government Sector are members of the Comcover Fund.

Finance offers induction training to Commonwealth officials who have a role in administering the Comcover insurance arrangements for their entity. This induction training provides an overview of what insurable risks are covered by Comcover, the claims process run reports and how to navigate Comcover’s online portal.

Upcoming face-to-face training sessions in Canberra are provided below:

To register please email comcover@comcover.com.au or call 1800 651 540 (option 2).