A In Reduction in Emissions

ANAO Report No.11 2014–15 The Award of Grants under the Clean Technology Program 111  committee members being asked to provide their scores against each of the merit criteria prior to meetings scores were then collated and tabled in meetings using the process discussed in paragraph 5.6 125 ;  two or more spokespersons appointed prior to meetings leading the discussion of each application by ‘typically’ giving a general overview of a project, followed by their assessment of the application against each of the merit criteria;  committee members discussing the application, agreeing on whether to recommend the application for funding and providing a final committee score; and  a discussion of any conditions to be placed on the recommendation and the identification of a reason if the committee was not recommending an application.

5.4 In

support of this advice, the department provided agenda documents setting out this process as a proposed approach for conducting meetings, but was otherwise unable to substantiate the content of committee deliberations. As was noted in paragraphs 2.50 to 2.54, the retained records of CTIC and CTFFIC meetings including meeting minutes and recommendation sheets did not provide a basis for identifying the matters discussed in meetings.

5.5 Given

that a large majority of applications were approved for funding, the absence of recorded reasons for recommending applications has led to a lack of transparency regarding the factors that were considered important in forming individual funding recommendations. 126 ANAO therefore examined the content of CTIC and CTFFIC meeting notes taken by departmental officers. 127 During the audit, the department had advised ANAO that these notes ‘were used to prepare the minutes and decisions which were cleared by the committee’, but subsequently advised ANAO that they do not ‘reflect a complete and accurate record of the meetings’. Notwithstanding any limitations of the notes, they are the only records available to evidence 125 Except for committee members that had advised of a conflict of interest. 126 For example, the reported score for merit criterion one in the departmental assessment report was different to the reported score after the application was considered by the:  departmental committee in eight per cent of applications 22 applications; and  CTIC or the CTFFIC in 44 per cent of applications 206 applications. 127 Notes were available for 455 of the 488 applications considered by the IA committees.