With The Program Design

  ANAO Report No.11 2014–15 The Award of Grants under the Clean Technology Program 61 The Committee Member assessment records were not destroyed. The offer to destroy the Committee Member’s [sic] personal notes is a long standing security procedure to support members’ appropriate management of papers in their personal possession. The members individual merit scores provided to the meeting are kept as noted and the Committee’s recommendation on the merit of an application is set out in the decision sheet and minutes.

2.53 As

a consequence of the department’s decision not to retain the templates completed by committee members, the documentation that was provided in support of the committees’ recommendations was limited to:  a spreadsheet for each meeting that included scores provided by the committee members who were the spokespersons for each application;  the signed minutes of each meeting;  a signed recommendation for each application; and  informal notes that supported the meeting minutes. 73

2.54 However,

the information that was contained in the meeting minutes and individual recommendation sheets was identical and, as shown in Figure 2.2, did not provide sufficient details regarding the assessment of applications, including the basis for the recommendations made by the IA committees or the range of matters ANAO has been advised were taken into account see paragraph 2.48. 73 Informal notes were available for 455 of the 488 applications considered by the IA committees. ANAO Report No.11 2014–15 The Award of Grants under the Clean Technology Program 62 Figure 2.2: Example of a recommendation sheet from the CTFFIC Clean Technology Food and Foundries Investment Committee assessment: Merit rating: 69.8 Merit ranking: NA Recommendation: Supported Recommendation reason: The Committee recommends that the Program Delegate approves funding of up to 50 of eligible project expenditure for a Clean Technology Food and Foundries Investment Program grant up to a maximum of ,. Chair’s Name: Name Signature: Signature Date: Date FF Applicant Name Source: ANAO adaptation from IA Committee Recommendations.

2.55 It

would be reasonable to expect that the value added by the specialist knowledge of the IA committees with external members would be reflected in there being greater variation between committee assessment scores and departmental assessment reports. The department has advised ANAO that it anticipated that this would be the case, but ANAO’s analysis was that the program was not implemented in a way that ensured the reasons for differences were appropriately recorded for accountability and related purposes.

2.56 In

this context, Figure 2.3 demonstrates that there was greater consistency between the department’s records and the records of the departmental committee compared to the other IA committees. Specifically, for 75 per cent of applications considered by the departmental committee the scores were consistent with the departmental assessment; but this fell to 18 per cent of applications for the other IA committees. Accordingly, while the departmental assessment reports provide some basis for explaining three‐ quarters of the recommendations made by the departmental committee, they not surprisingly provide only limited explanation for the recommendations of the other IA committees.