2018-05-01
Ms PENNICUIK (Southern Metropolitan) (12:19:50) — I would also like to speak briefly on the financial and performance outcomes report tabled today from the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee and to echo my thanks to the committee secretariat, as named by Ms Patten, for their fabulous work on this report. It is worth remembering that this is only the third time a financial and performance outcomes report has been tabled by the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee. In fact hearings with the various departments have been conducted only three times. This is part of the public accounts function of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, which hitherto has been more focused on the budget estimates side of its role, which we will be launching into not too far from now.
The budget estimates hearings are followed up six months later by the inquiry into the financial and performance outcomes, and that involves working with the departments and the staff to chase up what sometimes are anomalies between what has been allocated to departments to spend and the actual spending of that allocation from the budget by the departments. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the secretaries, deputy secretaries and staff of the departments who also do a lot of work in answering the surveys and preparing for the hearings. There is a lot of information from the surveys, from the hearings and from the questions that are taken on notice.
As Ms Patten said, it is a very readable report and, as Ms Shing said, it is a very digestible report, but it is a good source of information for members of Parliament and the public as to how budget allocations have been spent by the departments. I would say that while it has improved transparency there is still a long way to go with regard to transparency and accountability with the expenditure of public funds, but this is certainly good start.
Motion agreed to.