ANAO Report No.10 2014–15 Administration of the Biodiversity Fund Program
68
the
project was considered of high quality and represented strong value
for money; and
in addition, funding consideration had to be made to the proposed
expenditure in the out‐years of the program.
4.27 The
ANAO’s review of the reserve list found that the 18 selected projects
ranged in score from 7.5 to 8.0.
94
There were 12 projects on the reserve list
that were ranked higher than 8.0, but were not selected. Records retained by
the department, including the Addendum to the Moderation Group report that
was provided to the Minister, do not indicate the basis on which the 18
projects were selected in preference to other higher scoring applications on the
reserve list. Improved documentation of this process would have enhanced the
department’s ability to demonstrate that the most meritorious applications, having
regard to the program’s objectives, were recommended for funding.
Assessing eligibility
4.28 It
is important that grant assessment and selection processes apply the eligibility
criteria that have been communicated to potential grant recipients. In this
respect, it is advisable and the usual practice to confirm the compliance of
each application with the eligibility criteria as the first stage of the assessment
process. This ensures that non‐eligible applications are excluded from
further consideration and limited resources are not expended on merit assessing
applications that are subsequently found to be ineligible.
4.29 In
the case of the Biodiversity Fund program, Environment conducted the
eligibility assessment for applications at the conclusion of the selection process
rather than at the beginning, assessing only those applications that were
likely to receive funding.
95
Environment decided on this approach because
of the large number of applications received for Round 1 over 1500. Delaying
the eligibility assessment meant that the number of applications the department
was required to assess for eligibility in this round was reduced to around
300. Nevertheless, all applications were subject to merit assessment,
94 There were 134 projects on the reserve list, scoring from 7.5 to 9.33. The 18 selected projects
included one from Western Australia and one from Victoria, and three from Queensland. The selection did not include any of the three Indigenous projects on the reserve list.
95 Environment advised the ANAO that eligibility checking occurred concurrently with the assessment of
applications. While this was the case for a number of eligibility criteria that could be confirmed via the information provided in the application form for example, the location of the project within Australia’s
geographic boundaries or a target area, a number of the eligibility criteria were assessed at the conclusion of the moderation process.
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which is generally a more detailed, time‐consuming and resource intensive
process merit assessment does not however generally assess the extent to
which eligibility criteria have been met.
4.30 While
Environment had developed an eligibility checklist to record its assessment
of each recommended project’s eligibility, the checklist did not include
all published eligibility criteria and, in any case, was not used by departmental
staff undertaking the assessment. As outlined in Chapter 3, the Grant
Assessment Plan and other materials for assessors did not provide sufficient
guidance for departmental staff tasked with undertaking the eligibility assessments,
such as whether a proposed project represented a ‘business as usual’
activity.
4.31 Environment
staff undertaking the eligibility assessment of recommended
applicants used a range of spreadsheets to record the outcomes of the
assessment for specific criteria, such as the applicant being a legal entity and the
proposed project including in‐kind contributions where the project was to be undertaken
on public land. Nevertheless, there was limited evidence retained by the
department to indicate that all of the published eligibility criteria had been assessed.
96
For example, to assess whether proposed projects had been previously
funded, or had outstanding reportsacquittals, Environment conducted
a review of its own records. However, there was no practical way for the
department to assess other elements of these criteria relating to whether the projects
had received funding from other sources, or had overdue reportsacquittals
from previous Australian Government funded projects.
4.32 Further,
while the internal and community assessors had been asked to indicate
whether they considered that proposed projects represented ‘business as
usual’ activities and would thus be ineligible for funding
97
, evidence was not
retained to demonstrate that Environment had followed up these comments or
otherwise assessed this criterion. In 21 out of the 64 Round 1 successful
