ANAO Report No.10 2014–15 Administration of the Biodiversity Fund Program
30
criteria by both an internal departmental officer and an external community
assessor.
29
Those applications that were highly ranked at the merit assessment stage
were subsequently subjected to a moderation process
30
, which was
designed to, among other things, ensure that there was an appropriate:
geographic distribution of projects; balance of funding across program themes
and project types; and mix of large and small scale projects. Applications that
were recommended for funding following the moderation process were then
assessed for eligibility.
31
Once eligibility was determined, recommended applications
were provided to the Minister the Minister for Sustainability, Environment,
Water, Population and Communities and, subsequently, the Minister
for Environment, Heritage and Water
32
for approval.
1.8 Environment
received over 2200 Expressions of Interest EOIs and full applications
over the four completed funding rounds. Of these, 334 projects received
funding at a total cost of around 324 million over six years from 2011–12
to 2016–17. Awarded funding was broad in range, varying from 7103 to
5.72 million—of the 334 awarded grants, 73 22 per cent received 100 000 or
less, while 57 17 per cent received over 2 million. Grant recipients included:
state government agencies; catchment management authorities; local councils;
Landcare groups and other environmental interest groups; Indigenous
land management groups; co‐operatives of public and private landowners;
and individual landowners. Projects are being undertaken in all states
and territories, involving activities such as revegetation and pest control plants
and animals, erosion protection and establishment of wildlife corridors.
Figure 1.1 shows an example of a Biodiversity Fund program project site
visited by the ANAO as part of audit fieldwork.
29 The two scores were then averaged to provide a merit score for each application. Where the two
scores varied by more than 30 per cent, they were reviewed by a ‘normalisation panel’ which confirmed the averaged score or adjusted it, as considered appropriate.
30 The moderation process was undertaken by a Moderation Group, which comprised an independent
chair, three external assessors, and two senior departmental officers. 31
While entities generally assess eligibility prior to the merit assessment stage, Environment elected to conduct eligibility assessments after the merit assessments as a means to reduce the workload that
would arise from conducting eligibility assessments of all applications. Eligibility assessments were conducted for 21 per cent of lodged applications in Round 1, 35 per cent of those lodged in the NATI
round, six per cent of applications in Round 2, and 21 per cent of applications lodged in the Investing in Tasmania’s Native Forests Round.
32 The Hon. Tony Burke MP was Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and
Communities from 14 September 2010 to 1 July 2013. The Hon. Mark Butler MP was Minister for Environment, Heritage and Water from 1 July 2013 to 18 September 2013.
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Figure 1.1: Example of a Biodiversity Fund program project site
Source: ANAO site visits. Invasive willows cleared from a creek bed, to be followed by revegetation with local native plantings.
Discretionary grants
1.9 In
addition to the grants selected through the competitive, merit‐based assessment
process, there were an additional four discretionary grants awarded under
the Biodiversity Fund program, with a total value of 7.65 million ranging
from 176 000 to 6 million. The projects funded through these discretionary
