The In Reduction in Emissions

  Figure 4.4: Scores allocated to applications for indicator one, merit criterion one and the overall merit score 121 Source: ANAO anal ys is.

121 The

anal ys is rep ort ed on in Figur e 4.4 w as perf or m ed u sin g the de partmental assessment scores for indicator one, me rit cri terion one a nd the overall me rit score. These scores w e re con v erted to a pe rce n tage of the to tal score available under each cate gor y. 50 100 150 200 250 -1 1 -2 2 -3 3 -4 4 -5 5 -6 6 -7 7 -8 8 -9 9 -1 Number of ap pli ca tio ns approved 50 100 150 200 250 -1 1 -2 2 -3 3 -4 4 -5 5 -6 6 -7 7 -8 8 -9 9 -1 Number of applications not approved Percentage of total av ailable score under each category Indicator 1 Mer it C riterion 1 Score a gainst all criteria ANAO Report No.11 2014–15 The Award of Grants under the Clean Technology Program 108 Conclusion

4.39 It

was originally expected that the programs would only fund projects that would deliver a significant reduction in carbon emissions intensity. However, more than 100 projects with low carbon emissions intensity reductions were awarded funding of 47.6 million. 122 This situation was the result of the high weighting adopted for the merit criterion relating to reductions in carbon emissions intensity merit criterion one not being supported by other aspects of the design and implementation of the assessment process. Specifically a significant proportion of the score against this criterion did not relate to reductions in carbon emissions intensity, but an assessment of the grant funds per tonne of carbon abated. The inclusion of this indicator had a significant effect in that, had the merit criterion one score solely related to each application’s assessed performance in reducing carbon emissions intensity:  57 successful applications may not have been awarded funding, at a saving of 30.6 million or an average of 536 400 for each application; and  126 unsuccessful applications may have been awarded funding at a cost of 61.3 million or an average of 486 800 for each application.

4.40 A

more robust and transparent approach in the context of the grants administration framework would have involved:  developing a consistent, evidence‐based approach to assessing applications and publicising that approach in the program guidelines;  specifying a minimum score that an application must achieve against the first merit criterion in order to be approved for funding. This approach guards against applications scoring very highly against less important criteria being awarded funding notwithstanding a poor score against the most important criterion; and  including the value for moneycost‐effectiveness of projects as a separate merit criterion. 122 In this respect, there were 57 successful applications that had a predicted percentage reduction of less than 10 per cent and another 131 successful applications that had a predicted percentage reduction of between 10 and 20 per cent. See paragraph 4.35