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16. Environment

prepared a high‐level risk assessment for the Biodiversity Fund program, and also prepared assessments specifically focusing on the four funding rounds conducted for the program. In general, these funding round risk assessments focused on higher‐level program implementation risks, and not risks specifically related to each round. 14

17. The

department established key performance indicators KPIs for the Biodiversity Fund program that have been included in its Portfolio Budget Statements, and subsequently performance against these indicators was reported in its annual reports. In the earlier years of program implementation 2011–12 to 2013–14, reported information was generally focused on business processes, such as the management of funding rounds. While the more recent inclusion of outcome‐focused KPIs will better place the department to report on the extent to which Biodiversity Fund program objectives are being achieved, Environment is at an early stage in the collection of appropriate information to support reporting against these KPIs.

18. The

importance of developing a suitable framework that provides meaningful information about the achievement of natural resource programs’ objectives has been a consistent theme in the ANAO’s audits for over a decade. Environment’s adoption of a performance monitoring and reporting framework that seeks to facilitate the gathering of project‐level data that can be used to inform reporting on program‐level achievements 15 , if implemented as intended, has the potential to provide a sound basis for the department to address an area that has been a gap in the administration of programs. However, at the time of the audit, project‐level reporting is in its early stages and the planned on‐ground scientific monitoring of a selection of project sites and broad‐scale monitoring using satellite imagery and other technologies, which would verify and complement the project‐level data being collected by funding recipients, is yet to be implemented. Access to the Biodiversity Fund program Chapter 3

19. Environment

consulted with stakeholders during the design of the Biodiversity Fund program’s Round 1 and Northern Australia Targeted 14 For example, the round being heavily over-subscribed, leading to processing pressures on the department, and problems with the application lodgement system that heightened the risk of inadvertently excluding applicants to the program. 15 This framework is the Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Improvement MERI Framework. ANAO Report No.10 2014–15 Administration of the Biodiversity Fund Program 18 Investment NATI funding rounds, and conducted surveys of funding applicants