Annual report content requirements

The accountable authority of a corporate Commonwealth entity must include the following content in the annual report:

• details of the legislation establishing the body
• a summary of the objects and functions of the entity as set out in the legislation
• the purposes of the entity as included in the entity’s corporate plan for the reporting period.

The actions of a corporate Commonwealth entity are guided by its enabling legislation. The annual report must include the information detailed above and is designed to give readers a high-level understanding of the entity.

The annual report must include the following:

• a statement of any significant issues reported to the responsible Minister that relates to non-compliance with the finance law 
• if a statement is included, then an outline of the action that has been taken to remedy the non-compliance must also be included.

This requirement is linked to section 19 of the PGPA Act, which requires accountable authorities of Commonwealth entities to notify their responsible Minister when significant issues have been identified.

RMG-214 Notification of significant non-compliance with the finance law provides additional guidance and is available under Resource Management Guides. 

The annual report must specify the current responsible Minister’s name and the name of any other responsible Ministers during the financial year being reported on. The title of the responsible Minister(s) must also be included.   

Annual reports must include details of any directions issued by the responsible Minister, or other Minister(s), under the enabling legislation of the corporate Commonwealth entity or any other legislation or legislative instruments.

The Australian Government may make a government policy order that specifies a policy that is to apply to one or more corporate Commonwealth entities. A corporate Commonwealth entity that is subject to a government policy order is required to include this information in its annual report.

The annual report for a corporate Commonwealth entity must include the annual performance statements for the entity for the period.

The annual performance statements address the non-financial performance of an entity and must provide information about the entity's performance in achieving its purposes.

The annual performance statements are intended to complete the cycle of performance reporting that commenced at the start of the reporting period with the Portfolio Budget Statements (PBS) and corporate plan. An entity's annual performance statements should report the actual results achieved against the performance measures and targets set for the entity in its corporate plan and PBS.

The annual report for a corporate Commonwealth entity for a reporting period must include the following:

• information on the accountable authority, or each member of the accountable authority, during the period including:
  • the name of the accountable authority or each member
  • the qualifications of the accountable authority or each member
  • the experience of the accountable authority or each member
  • for each member—the number of meetings of the accountable authority attended by the member during the period
  • for each member—whether the member is an executive member or non executive member.
• For the purposes of annual reporting, an executive member is an employee of the corporate Commonwealth entity, responsible for executive functions in the management and administration of the entity. Non-executive members are independent of corporate management and not employee of the corporate Commonwealth entity.

The annual report must include the following:

• an outline of the organisational structure of the entity (including any subsidiaries of the entity).
• statistics on the number of employees of the entity (with reference to ongoing (meaning permanent) employees and non-ongoing (fixed term contract) employees), at the end of the reporting period and the previous reporting period, in relation to each of the following:
  • full time employees, as identified by your entity's employment arrangements. As a guide, the Fair Work Ombudsman's website provides general employment definitions.
  • part-time employees as identified by your entity's employment arrangements.
• gender, consistent with advice from the Attorney-General's Department, to describe gender in line with the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Standard for Sex, Gender, Variations of Sex Characteristics and Sexual Orientation Variables (2020). Categories are 
  • Man/Male
  • Woman/Female
  • Non-binary
  • Prefers not to answer
  • Uses a different term.
• location, based on the State or Territory of employment.
• an outline of the location (whether or not in Australia) of major activities or facilities of the entity.

All human resource statistics are to be calculated and reported on in an actual head count basis (number of employees) as at the end of each reporting period. Full-time equivalent statistics (for example, 1.5 FTE) are not to be reported.

If an entity believes the level of disaggregation of employee data could result in significant risk of unintentional identification and consequential harm to a specific employee, then the entity has the discretion to report that employee’s data at a higher level without further disaggregation. It is important when considering this, that the level of aggregation of information doesn’t make the reporting “meaningless” or be seen to complicate other details. The Australian Bureau of Statistics have published a Data confidentiality guide that offers guidance on the Five Safes framework, confidentiality techniques and confidentialising your own data.

Information on the main corporate governance practices that the entity had in place during the reporting period must be included. The content of this statement is at the discretion of the accountable authority. It is suggested that the review should include:

• board committees of the entity and their main responsibilities
• education and performance review processes for members of the accountable authority
• ethics and risk management policies.

The annual report for a corporate Commonwealth entity for a reporting period must include the following:

The decision making process undertaken by the accountable authority for making a decision if:

• the decision is to approve the entity paying for a good or service from another Commonwealth entity or a company, or providing a grant to another Commonwealth entity or a company
• the entity, and the other Commonwealth entity or the company, are related entities
• the value of the transaction, or if there is more than 1 transaction, the aggregate value of those transactions, is more than $10 000 (inclusive of GST).

If the annual report includes the information above, then the following must be included:

• if there is only 1 transaction—the value of the transaction 
• if there is more than 1 transaction—the number of transactions and the aggregate of value of the transactions. 
   

The annual report must include the decision making process undertaken by the accountable authority when it enters into a procurement or grant transaction where a member of the accountable authority holds a similar position in the organisation that provides the good or service or receives the grant. The organisation providing the good or service or receiving the grant may take the form of a Commonwealth entity, Commonwealth company or a private company.

The annual report must detail any significant activities and changes that affected the operations or structure of the entity during the financial year. This may include:

• significant events, such as forming or participating in the formation of a company, significant partnership or trust
• operational and financial results of the entity
• key changes to the entity’s state of affairs or principal activities
• amendments to the entity’s enabling legislation and to any other legislation directly relevant to its operation.

The annual report must include information on the most significant developments in external scrutiny of the entity that has occurred within the reporting period and the entity's response to that scrutiny.

This must include particulars of judicial decisions or decisions of administrative tribunals that have had, or may have, a significant effect on the operations of the entity.

The annual report must also include particulars on any report on the operations of the entity given during the period by any of the following:

• the Auditor-General, other than a report under section 43 of the Act (which deals with the Auditor-General’s audit of the annual financial statements for Commonwealth entities), or
• a Committee of either or both Houses of the Parliament, or
• the Commonwealth Ombudsman, or
• the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, or
• any capability reviews of the entity that were released during the period.

The annual report must provide an explanation of information not obtained from a subsidiary.

If the accountable authority was unable to obtain information from a subsidiary of the entity that is required to be included in the annual report, an explanation of the information that was not obtained and the effect of not having the information on the annual report must be included.

The annual report must provide details of any indemnity that applied during the period to the accountable authority, any member of the accountable authority or officer of the entity against a liability (including premiums paid, or agreed to be paid, for insurance against the authority, member or officer’s liability for legal costs).

The annual report must include the following:

• a direct electronic address of the charter determining the functions of the audit committee for the entity
• the name of each member of the audit committee during the period
• the qualifications, knowledge, skills or experience of those member
• information about each of those members’ attendance at meetings of the audit committee during the period
• the remuneration of each of those members.

RMG-202 Audit Committees provides additional guidance on the reporting requirements and is available under Resource Management Guides. 

Corporate Commonwealth entities are required to include information about executive remuneration in annual reports (Subdivision C of the PGPA Rule). This includes:

• the requirements for reporting remuneration details for:
  • key management personnel (KMP)
  • senior executives
  • other highly paid staff (OHPS).
• the requirements for reporting the policies and practices of the entity regarding the remuneration of the above.

RMG-138 Commonwealth entities' Executive Remuneration Reporting Guide for Annual Reports provides additional guidance and is available under Resource Management Guides. 

Entities must include a list of requirements in a consistent format, which is detailed in schedule 2A of the PGPA Rule, available in List of requirements - corporate Commonwealth entities under Tools and templates and at the Federal Register of Legislation. 

The list of requirements must be included as an appendix to the annual report. If an item specified in the checklist is not applicable to an entity, it should be reported as “not applicable” rather than omitted from the list. Entities must also provide details of the location of the information in the annual report that addresses each of the mandatory requirements specified by the PGPA Rule.

The annual report for a reporting period for a government business enterprise that is a corporate Commonwealth entity must include the following information:

• An assessment of:
  • significant changes in the entity’s overall financial structure and financial condition during the period.
  • any events or risks that could cause financial information that is reported not to be indicative of future operations or financial condition.
• Dividends paid or recommended in relation to the period.
• Details of any community service obligations the government business enterprise has, including:
  • an outline of actions the government business enterprise has taken to fulfil those obligations
  • an assessment of the cost of fulfilling those obligations.

Information may be excluded if the accountable authority of the government business enterprise believes, on reasonable grounds, that the information is commercially sensitive and would be likely to result in unreasonable commercial prejudice to the government business enterprise. The annual report must state whether such information has been excluded.

Section 516A Reporting Guidelines helps entities decide which of their activities to report on. Sets of generic indicators have also been provided to assist entities with ongoing monitoring of their Ecologically Sustainable Development and environmental performance.

Questions about the application of these requirements should be directed to this online enquiry form.

Climate Action in Government Operations

Emissions Reporting

As part of the reporting requirements under section 516A of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, and in line with the Government’s Net Zero in Government Operations Strategy, all non-corporate Commonwealth entities, corporate Commonwealth entities and Commonwealth companies are required to publicly report on the emissions from their operations.

To ensure consistency across reporting, entities are required to use the emissions reporting tool provided by the Department of Finance to calculate their emissions.

• See Australian Government Emissions Reporting for further information on emissions reporting requirements and content to be included in annual reports. 
• Contact Climate Action or call the reporting helpdesk at 02 6215 1999 for any queries regarding emissions reporting.

For further information on the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 please see the Comcare website. If there are any questions please contact Comcare at general.enquiries@comcare.gov.au.

Reporting on advertising and market research is not restricted to electoral matters. See Types of advertising for further guidance.

The reporting threshold for each year is available from the Australian Electoral Commission.

In the case of an entity that is defined as a ‘public service care agency’, compliance with the entity’s obligations under the Carer Recognition Act 2010 is required.

A public service care agency is defined in section 4 of the Carer Recognition Act 2010 to mean an agency as defined in the Public Service Act 1999 that is responsible for the development, implementation, provision or evaluation of policies, programs or services directed to carers or the persons for whom they care.

For further information about the obligations of entities under the Carer Recognition Act 2010, see the Carer Recognition Act Guidelines on the Department of Social Services website. Questions about the application of these requirements should be directed to carersupport@dss.gov.au.