In Advice to the Program Delegate and Funding Decisions

  ANAO Report No.11 2014–15 The Award of Grants under the Clean Technology Program 113 and three did not demonstrate that the members reached agreement on the reasons for the application demonstrating merit against the criterion.

5.8 In

another example, an assessment report presented to the IA committee identified three possible variations of a project, including one scenario in which the grant amount would be reduced. The IA committee members in attendance at the meeting scored the application using at least two of the three possible project variations, with two committee members scoring the original application using four merit criteria as the original grant amount requested was greater than 1.5 million and three committee members scoring the reduced funding scenario using three merit criteria as the reframed grant amount was less than 1.5 million. In this case, all scores, including the scores given against merit criterion four, were averaged to determine the overall merit score even though the final grant amount was less than 1.5 million.

5.9 The

appropriateness of the scoring was documented as an ongoing concern of the IA committee members who, in February 2013 a year into the programs, noted that it was difficult to ‘determine if projects are meritorious in carbon savings or financial savings’. These concerns were reflected in the recommendations made to the program delegate with 53 applications that scored over 60 per cent in aggregate against the merit criteria not recommended by the IA committees. The high number of applications that were not recommended, despite receiving a merit score of more than 60 per cent, was a direct consequence of an informal benchmarking approach that was used to consider the grant funds per tonne of carbon abated indicator jointly developed by the IA committee and the department. 131 Specifically, as discussed in paragraph 3.24, the department issued guidance to its assessors in August 2012 advising: It was always envisaged that the extent of the reduction in carbon emissions intensity merit criterion one would be the most difficult to assess. However, to date 36 applications have been assessed and 30 applications worth 26.4 million have been approved under both programs. With input from the committee we are starting to gather a pool of knowledge about how this criterion is being addressed by applicants. The current data would suggest that an estimated per tonne calculation that exceeds 80 is unlikely to 131 The IA committee meeting minutes reflect that 72 applications were not approved as carbon savings were not considered to be commensurate with the investment. When this feedback was provided by the IA committees as the reason for the recommendation, the associated notes recorded that the size of the grant funds per tonne of carbon abated was a factor that was considered.