The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has avoided being covered in the Australian National Audit Office’s (ANAO) latest report in the use of consultants by Government agencies because it funds the use of consultants from non-public revenues.
ASIC, which is funded in part from levies on industry, told the ANAO that its consultants were not funded from public money and, on that basis, the audit office decided to exempt the regulator from the audit process.
Comsuper was not so fortunate, finding itself tied up in the audit office assessment process which found serious shortcomings in the reporting regimes of many departments and agencies with respect to their use of consultants.
The audit report, published yesterday said that in response to its findings most of the 73 agencies covered acknowledged inadequacies in their reporting of expenditure of consultancies.
“In total, 85 per cent advised the ANAO that they would take some form of corrective action,” it said. “This ranged from advising the ANAO of changes to processes for preparing their 2004-05 annual reports to the issuing of a corrigendum to their 2003-04 annual reports.”
