All The The Establishment and Management of Funding Agreements

ANAO Report No.10 2014–15 Administration of the Biodiversity Fund Program 96

6.40 The

reporting schedule for each round of the program has meant that all grant recipients submit reports at the same time. This has resulted in departmental officers having peak reporting periods during the year 334 for the Biodiversity Fund program, in addition to reports from other grants programs to review in relatively short periods of time.

6.41 The

ANAO examined the department’s review and acceptance of mid ‐year and annual reports for Round 1 funded projects. 139 Overall, the checklists were adequately completed and sufficient evidence had been retained by Environment to evidence that reports were assessed and accepted by the department. 140

6.42 The

ANAO also examined the time taken by Environment to review and accept the mid‐year reports in the sampled funding agreements that were due in February 2013. For the Round 1 projects for which the information was available 141 , the ANAO found that the average time taken by the department to review and accept reports was 49 calendar days seven weeks. For all three funded NATI projects, the average time taken to review and accept reports was 38 calendar days five and a half weeks, while in the sample of Round 2 projects reviewed, the average time taken was 42 days six weeks.

6.43 Environment

had not set a benchmark for the timeliness of reviewing mid ‐year or annual reports and subsequently approving milestone payments. However, the time taken by the department to review and accept reports around six to seven weeks has created problems for some grant recipients, particularly smaller organisations. In the feedback provided to the department and directly to the ANAO through stakeholder interviews and a survey, two grant recipients reported that the delay in receiving grant payments had resulted in cash‐flow problems for their project, and others noted that while 139 The ANAO reviewed Round 1 mid-year reports due in February 2013 and annual reports due in August 2013. Further reports for Round 1, and for the NATI and Round 2 funded projects, were excluded from this analysis due to report assessments not being recorded on hard-copy files, with the introduction of MERIT. 140 In a small number of cases 5 of the 120 cases reviewed where there was evidence of mid-year and annual reports being submitted there was insufficient evidence retained in the files reviewed by the ANAO to demonstrate that reports had been assessed prior to reports being accepted by the department. 141 The documentation for 28 of the 64 Round 1 projects reviewed by the ANAO 44 per cent of the sample did not clearly record the date the department had initially received the mid-year report, andor the date the report was accepted by the department. Therefore, it was not possible to determine the timeframe for acceptance of these reports.