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ANAO Report No.11 2014–15 The Award of Grants under the Clean Technology Program 18 strong demand for funding and the significant level of assistance provided to applicants by the department’s AusIndustry Division. In this latter respect:  a high proportion of applications 84 per cent proceeded through the eligibility checking stage to merit assessment;  a similarly high proportion of applications 74 per cent that proceeded to merit assessment were recommended and approved for funding; and  expenditure proceeded more quickly than originally budgeted, such that 160 million in program funding was brought forward to 2014–15.

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significant amount of grant funding provided to industry over the relatively short period of time the programs were in operation was consistent with AusIndustry’s culture of assisting businesses to access programs it administers. However, the approach that was taken to assessing applications was not sufficiently focussed on maximising program objectives and treating applicants equitably. As a result, it was common for funding to be approved for projects that did not have high expectations as to the extent of the reduction in carbon emissions intensity they would deliver. 13 Further, a number of the approaches employed to maximise the assistance to industry did not sit comfortably with the operation of a competitive grants program under the Australian Government’s grants administration framework. Specifically:  some incomplete applications were permitted to proceed to the departmental merit assessment;  some applications were ‘reframed’ 14 to improve their assessed merit in terms of published criteria. 15 The published program material, and internal program documentation, did not clearly establish the circumstances in which reframing assistance would be provided to applicants by the department, and the extent of this assistance. Further, applicants were not required to re‐submit reframed applications; 13 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 prediction percentage reduction of between 10 and 20 per cent. A reduction of 16 per cent from 2010 emissions levels would have been required to be consistent with the broader policy target set by the then Government to reduce carbon pollution by five per cent from 2000 levels by 2020. 14 This involved the department or the relevant assessment committee changing the project activities, grant amount andor underlying assumptions to exclude ineligible activities or activities that the department considered did not represent value for money. 15 This approach was not designed to maximise program outcomes by seeking to improve all eligible applications, but on reframing applications that were otherwise unlikely to be awarded funding.      ‐ ANAO Report No.11 2014–15 The Award of Grants under the Clean Technology Program