The Treasury Department has dismissed all the recommendations made by the national audit office regarding its corporate planning and reporting responsibilities, with secretary John Fraser writing "oh, that life would be that simple" to the auditor general.
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In recent years the Australian National Audit Office has reported annually on selected government departments' and agencies' delivery of the government's performance framework as part of a bid to make their governance and accountability more transparent.
The audit office made four recommendations for Treasury, including that the department use its corporate plan as its primary planning document, that its plan summarises its risk management approach and how that contributes to the department's work.
Mr Fraser said the department was different because of the complexities involved with answering to multiple minister and rapidly changing priorities.
"As Treasury's Accountable Authority under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA Act), I will continue to determine the most appropriate approach to developing and embedding the Plan," Mr Fraser wrote to auditor general Grant Hehir.
"In an environment where we have multiple Ministers to serve and where priorities change rapidly, the Corporate Plan cannot be an 'operational manual'. Oh, that life would be that simple!" he said.
Mr Fraser said that Treasury was already effectively measuring how the department was reaching its goals, pointing to a staff survey result.
"One piece of evidence suggests that the current approach is effective with 87 percent of Treasury staff indicating they 'have a clear understanding of how their workgroups role contributes to the Treasury's strategic direction' (2017 APS Census)," he wrote.
Mr Fraser said that the department gets feedback from its counterparts in other jurisdictions as part of improving its management.
"The New Zealand Treasury complimented us on the simplicity and streamlined nature of our Plan. Adding additional and repetitive content may compromise this approach and favours form over substance."
Mr Fraser's dismissal of the recommendations ended with a swipe at the Act itself.
"I understand an independent review is underway to assess the objectives of the PGPA Act and whether intended benefits have been realised," he wrote.
Similar recommendations were made to CSIRO, the Commonwealth Ombudsman and AUSTRAC, almost all of which were accepted.
Treasury told the audit office it believed it was already complying with its reporting responsibilities, or that to change its reporting to comply with the Act would be in some cases misleading and in others an unnecessary duplication of reporting elsewhere.
