PGPA Newsletter 104

Entities are currently drafting their 2023-24 digital annual reports in the Digital Annual Reporting Tool (DART). 

The Tabling Guidelines note the expectation that: “Annual Reports are tabled prior to the start of the Supplementary Budget Estimates hearings each year and immediately published on the Transparency Portal after tabling occurs. This ensures Annual Reports are available for scrutiny by the relevant Senate standing committee. To facilitate this, documents can be tabled in the Senate on any business day in October excluding any Thursday when the Senate is sitting.”

Tips to aid the digital authoring experience:

• If you are first time user of the DART, you should have received an email from Kontent.ai to register and use the Tool. If you are yet to login, your invitation will have expired. Please contact dar@finance.gov.au for this invitation to be reactivated.
   
• If you used the DART last reporting period, please go to https://dart.transparency.gov.au/ and click “Sign-in to DART”. You will be prompted to input your password, and then hit “forgot my password” which will generate a validation code in your email inbox. This is required because we have moved to a different authentication process and the kontent.ai code that you used last year in your authenticator app will no longer work. The process described here will generate an authenticator code called “dartprod” which you will require for working on your 2023-24 annual report.
   
• The appearance of an orange dot next to a chapter or section indicates that something is missing. This might be an alternative text description on an image, or a table incorrectly uploaded. Please contact dar@finance.gov.au should you require assistance in completing your content.
   
• When uploading data templates, please note that any change made to the formatting of the excel spreadsheet that accompanies each template will cause the upload to fail.  When you download the excel file, for example the spreadsheet that captures “Details of Accountable Authority”, please take care not to change any of the columns or rows. Fill in each cell with the required information before uploading back into the DART.
   
• Entities should ensure that the List of Requirements as set out in Schedule 2 (non-corporate entities), Schedule 2A (corporate entities) and Schedule 2B (Commonwealth Companies) of the PGPA Rule must be reproduced in full in the body of the annual report.
   
• Departments of State should continue to include information on all Ministers that have administered the Department for the reporting period in their annual report for 2023-24, consistent with the approach taken for the 2022-23 annual report.

Need assistance in using the DART? Please email us at dar@finance.gov.au.

Thank you to all those Commonwealth entities and companies who published their 2024–25 corporate plans by the deadline of 31 August. Finance has published all of those plans on the Transparency Portal.

As a reminder for the 2025-26 corporate plan, please be reminded that:

• corporate plans are required to be sent to PGPA@finance.gov.au prior to publishing online
• consult with Finance (PGPA@finance.gov.au) if you are intending to make any changes (variations) to your corporate plan.

Further guidance on corporate plan publishing requirements and variations to your plans is available in:

• RMG-132 Corporate plans for Commonwealth entities
• RMG-133 Corporate plans for Commonwealth companies

Please contact PGPA@finance.gov.au if you have any questions.

Entities must complete a Risk Potential Assessment Tool (RPAT) for all New Policy Proposals with financial implications of $30 million or above.

The purpose of the RPAT is to assist entities to determine and communicate the potential risk of a proposal to ministers before seeking Cabinet’s agreement. The risk rating of a proposal can also inform whether additional assurance processes may apply, for example Gateway Reviews.

Where the level of risk before mitigation is rated ‘MEDIUM’ or higher, entities must provide a copy of the RPAT to the relevant Agency Advice Unit in the Department of Finance’s Budget Group, and the Assurance Reviews Unit at assurancereviews@finance.gov.au.

The RPAT is an Excel template, and must be used in conjunction with the guidance in RMG-107. The full RMG-107 guidance can be downloaded and viewed as a PDF by clicking the print icon on the top right-hand corner of the Completing the Risk Assessment Tool page.

For any queries, please contact assurancereviews@finance.gov.au. 

• 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.