In The In A

      ANAO Report No.11 2014–15 The Award of Grants under the Clean Technology Program 89 assessed merit in terms of the published criteria. The focus was on assisting applicants whose application was otherwise unlikely to score well enough to be recommended for approval, rather than seeking to reframe all applications where the department considered the applicant could have proposed a more meritorious approach as assessed against the published criteria.

3.47 The

approach adopted for the programs went well beyond clarifying information included in applications and seeking to address any minor information missing from the application. More broadly, combining advisory and assessment roles is an approach not well suited to maintaining an objective assessment of competing applications. In this context, where government decides that an advisory role should be performed in addition to the assessment of applications, it is preferable that a clear separation be maintained between the roles so as to maintain the objectivity of the assessment stage. There are also challenges that arise in treating applicants equitably due to the risk that the level of assistance provided to applicants will vary. Recommendation No.2

3.48 To

promote equitable access to grant funding and objective assessment of competing grant applications, ANAO recommends that, where the Government decides that advisory assistance should be provided, the Department of Industry separate the provision of this assistance from the task of assessing applications. Department of Industry’s response:

3.49 Agreed.

For future granting programmes, the roles of officials and other delivery partners are to be clarified and publicly documented in relation to advisory and assessment activities. ANAO Report No.11 2014–15 The Award of Grants under the Clean Technology Program 90

4. Reduction in Emissions

In the context of the program objective, this chapter examines the assessment of the extent to which applications would reduce carbon emissions intensity. Introduction

4.1 As

the primary objective of the programs was to reduce the carbon emissions intensity of manufacturers, the assessment framework developed by the department to score applications heavily weighted merit criterion one. 110 In this respect, the department advised ANAO in June 2014 that: The rationale behind the weightings of the merit criteria was to ensure that only those projects which delivered a significant reduction in carbon emissions intensity as outlined in the Guidelines could be funded. This reflects the Program objective. The weighting for this criterion ensured that applications which scored poorly against this criterion but performed very well against the remaining program criteria could not be funded. This was done at the direction of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.