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current at the time of all four Biodiversity Fund program rounds.
103
Further, there
was no evidence to suggest that the departmental or community assessors, or
the Moderation Group, took into consideration electoral matters when assessing
or recommending projects for funding and, apart from the NATI round
as is discussed at paragraph 4.41, the Minister approved the recommended
list of applications without amendment.
Conclusion
4.47 Environment
established appropriate arrangements for receiving applications
and providing confirmation to applicants, primarily through an online
application system. While difficulties were experienced with the online lodgement
system for Round 1 applications, Environment managed these issues
appropriately.
4.48 The
merit assessments undertaken by departmental and external assessors
generally followed the planned process as outlined in the grant guidelines
and the assessment plans—although in Round 1, there was inconsistent
provision of written comments in support of scores awarded. While
the normalisation process for applications where assessor scores varied by
more than 30 per cent was appropriately undertaken, the rationale for decisions
to vary the initial merit score could have been recorded in greater detail
in the information provided to the decision‐maker.
4.49 The
moderation process, which was appropriately administered by the department
and overseen by a probity adviser, was undertaken to help ensure that
projects recommended for funding would collectively meet the Biodiversity
Fund’s overall objectives. However, the involvement of the Moderation
Group, in particular the extent to which it could influence the selection
or exclusion of highly‐ranked applications was not adequately explained
in the grant guidelines particularly in Round 1. The provision of this
information would have assisted potential applicants to make informed decisions
about their applications. Further, the ranking by the Moderation Group
of recommended applications in order of merit, rather than ‘recommended’
and ‘reserve’, would have added to the transparency of the decision
‐making process.
103 The purpose and objectives of the Biodiversity Fund program, as approved by the Government in 2011, were likely to result in the majority of projects being located in semi-rural, rural, regional and
remote areas, which may have contributed to this outcome.
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4.50 Environment
elected to implement an assessment and selection model in
which the eligibility assessment was conducted following the merit assessment,
primarily to help manage workloads. While Environment conducted
an eligibility assessment for a number of the criteria as set out in the grant
guidelines for each round, there was limited evidence to demonstrate that
all eligibility criteria had been adequately assessed. In particular, the department
would have been better placed to demonstrate the adequate assessment
of more subjective eligibility criteria, such as whether a proposed project
could be considered a ‘business as usual’ activity and therefore not eligible
for funding if there had been: a clear definition in the published guidelines;
guidance for departmental staff on conducting the assessment; and sufficient
documentation of the assessment of this eligibility criterion for each recommended
application.
4.51 The
