Commonwealth Ombudsman Professor John McMillan today criticised the lack of quality controls and accountability measures applying to executive schemes used by Australian Government agencies to provide grants and other benefits to the public.
Executive schemes are not based in legislation, but in agency guidelines and policy statements. They are widely used for purposes as varied as redundancy benefits, emergency financial assistance, drought relief, health payments, LPG conversion, farming restructure, industry incentives, and administrative compensation.
‘Executive schemes can be set up quickly by agencies and adjusted when circumstances change,’ Professor McMillan said. ‘This flexibility is prized by agencies, but the public can suffer.
‘The checks and balances that apply to legislation are missing. The rules of executive schemes are not tabled in parliament, the rules may not be professionally drafted, and decisions are not appealable to a tribunal.’
Professor McMillan said that decisions made under executive schemes were a regular source of complaint to his office, while an investigation found similar problems across agencies. His report draws on case studies from several organisations, including the Departments of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations; Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry; and Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.
For example, grant applicants were not aware of unpublished closing dates; scheme rules were ambiguous and poorly drafted; rule changes were applied retrospectively to rejected applications; different versions of a scheme were applied inconsistently within an agency; and defective decisions could not be independently reviewed and corrected.
‘It is important that governments can respond promptly to emergencies with offers of financial aid and other assistance, such as the recovery package available to people affected by the 2009 Victorian bushfires,’ he said. ‘However, there must be safeguards.’
The Ombudsman called on government agencies to follow eight best practice principles in developing and managing executive schemes:
- develop full eligibility criteria that reflect a scheme’s policy intent
- ensure guidelines are legally and technically sound
- ensure comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date information is publicly available
- publish details of executive schemes in annual reports
- do not apply changes to a scheme retrospectively to disadvantage applicants
- monitor implementation of a scheme by the agency with policy responsibility
- introduce quality controls in decision making
- include procedures for complaint handling and internal review
Download the report: Executive schemes.
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Date of release: 5 August 2009