enhanced-commonwealth-performance-framework-discussion-paper

However, we recognise that existing planning arrangements have often served individual
entities well and that change may be unnecessarily disruptive. As such, some existing
arrangements have been maintained and the minimum standards for corporate planning, as set
by the PGPA Act and associated rules, will require flexibility to account for these exceptions
while still achieving the required planning outcomes for entities.
The intent of a minimum standard, as set by the PGPA Act and to be included in its rules, is to
clarify particular elements of the corporate plan, and not to mandate approval practices or
prescribe information requirements. Any additional requirements would be entity-specific and
detailed in an entity’s enabling legislation. This is the approach taken in the Public Governance,
Performance and Accountability (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Act 2014.
Currently, entities are required to comply with a large number of legislative and non-legislative
requirements covering corporate governance, human resources and financial management.
Many of these requirements impose publishing requirements on entities, and some of these
requirements involve duplicate reporting. Ultimately, the corporate plan could become the
central repository of such information, through establishing a single list of compliance
requirements and a single governance structure for an entity’s administration.
Options for having tiered reporting requirements could also be considered, which would
require different levels of detail provided depending on activity thresholds or materiality. For
example, smaller Commonwealth entities could be required to provide less information about
some of the requirements. A similar approach is being explored to scope options for financial
reporting requirements as part of the Public Management Reform Agenda process.
Key questions
• Is the proposed list below of inclusions in a corporate plan appropriate
• Do you have any suggestions on removing existing duplicative reporting
• Do you have any suggestions on how to tier existing performance reporting requirements
Proposed inclusions
Proposed inclusions for the content of corporate plans are set out below. This indicative list was
developed by drawing on input gathered from our survey of existing corporate plans and
through our consultations with Commonwealth entities to compile this discussion paper.
As a general principle, where a Commonwealth entity already publishes a document that
includes the requirements for corporate plans as proposed below, it is not proposed that the
entity produce a new document. Rather, the rule should allow for the entity to identify the
document that represented, for the purposes of the PGPA Act, its corporate plan.
Further, as indicated above, corporate plans could be expanded over time to become the central
repository of information in relation to a single list of legislative and non-legislative compliance
requirements.
There are a number of ways in which the information presented in a corporate plan and in
Portfolio Budget Statements can relate to each other. The model posited in this discussion paper
represents one approach. An alternative approach could be for the corporate plan to provide the
detail of the performance information that an entity intends to collect over the coming years,
and the Portfolio Budget Statements to provide a summary that focuses primarily on changes to
the performance information, particularly where they are the result of budget decisions.
Each of the proposed core items in a corporate plan is described in Table 1.
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