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‐ ‐     ANAO Report No.10 2014–15 Administration of the Biodiversity Fund Program 15 Overall conclusion

11. The

Biodiversity Fund program, administered by the Department of the Environment Environment, was established as a 946.2 million competitive, merit ‐based grants program 11 as part of the Clean Energy Future initiative. 12 The program was designed to protect and enhance biodiversity by providing land managers with grants to undertake on‐ground works to revegetate land, protect existing biodiversity, and prevent the spread of invasive species. The program is broad in scope, with funding recipients including individual landholders through to large state government departments, and grants ranging from just over 7000 to almost 6 million.

12. In

the main, Environment established suitable arrangements for the administration of the Biodiversity Fund program, including: a governance framework that provided appropriate visibility of program delivery to departmental management; generally sound processes and procedures to underpin the complex grant assessment process; and funding agreements and management arrangements with grant recipients that, in general, supported the delivery of funded projects while protecting the Commonwealth’s interests. There were, however, shortcomings in aspects of the department’s administration of the program, specifically:  the assessment of each of the eligibility criteria, as outlined in the program’s grant guidelines, was not sufficiently robust or transparent. In particular, there was a lack of clarity in the guidelines relating to some eligibility criteria, limited guidance for departmental assessors undertaking the eligibility assessments, and insufficient documentation to demonstrate that an eligibility assessment had been undertaken against all eligibility criteria for each recommended application; and  the compliance strategy, which was developed relatively early during program implementation, was not fully implemented. While the department adopted a case management approach, the absence of a risk ‐based compliance monitoring program, as envisaged in the compliance strategy, reduced the assurance that the department had 11 There were also discretionary grants available alongside the competitive merit-based funding rounds. 12 In December 2013, the program was closed to new applicants, with unexpended program funds returned to consolidated revenue. ANAO Report No.10 2014–15 Administration of the Biodiversity Fund Program 16 regarding recipients’ compliance with the obligations established under their funding agreements.

13. In