The office has 337 staff and a budget of $78.7 million.

Its purpose is to improve public sector performance and accountability through independent reporting on Australian Government administration to parliament, the executive and the public.

The Auditor-General is an independent officer, appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit and the Prime Minister.

In 2015-16 the office completed 256 financial statement audit opinions, 49 performance audit reports and made 20 submissions or appearances before parliamentary committees.

A survey of parliamentarians revealed 88 per cent were satisfied with ANAO services to improve Australian Government administration.

It's a shame they don't back the agency's work with legislation and rules that give it teeth.

There have been many examples of the ANAO making findings that are critical of government departments, particularly in relation to procurement and the disbursement of grants.

This week the audit office found the Airservices Australia tender evaluation for a new air traffic management system was not undertaken in a robust and transparent manner.

"It is also not clearly evident that the successful tender is affordable in the context of the funding available to Airservices and Defence," the audit concluded.

As The Canberra Times reported, there was criticism last month of the Environment Department's process to buy a $1.9 billion new icebreaker to service Australia's Antarctic Territory.

"The department cannot demonstrate that its procurement is providing value with public resources," the report says.

In that case, the department acknowledged there was "always room for improvement" but disagreed with the finding.

Environment promised to take the auditor general's advice on board for next time, however many decades that might be.

In a keynote speech recently, Auditor-General Grant Hehir repeated findings that were critical of environmental grants programs.

"The absence of meaningful performance information makes it more difficult for entities responsible for the delivery of environmental programs and activities to effectively manage delivery and for stakeholders to judge the impact and effectiveness of the public funding," he said.

But what are the consequences for departments that fail to properly account for expenditure of public money?

Unless an audit uncovers fraud or theft it seems there aren't any.

Criticisms of poor value for money appear to go unheeded.

In the private sector a senior executive who spent millions more than necessary, or who couldn't demonstrate effective expenditure, would probably be shown the door.

The ANAO deliberately takes a consultative approach to its audits and issues "better practice guides" to disseminate lessons learnt.

It's questionable if all the lessons are being heeded given that consistent themes continue to emerge in audit reports.

While punitive action might be a stretch for breaches of process, there is certainly a strong argument that some accountability measure needs to be introduced, with repercussions of some kind for examples of poor practice.

Without a proper level of accountability in place, public confidence in spending on major programs will continue to undermined.