Evaluation of grants administration Phase two: Emergency grants

Summary

In the body's own words

1. Finding

   While several areas are identified for improvement, the agencies appropriately addressed key corruption risks in their administration of the programs.

   Report, page 6

Findings, opinions and statements

Allegations are not findings. A commission's finding or opinion of corrupt conduct or misconduct is not a finding that a person is guilty of a criminal offence, and the commissions say so in their reports.

No findings are reproduced in this record. This does not establish that the report contains none.

Recommendations 9

1. Recommendation 1

   PIRSA explore options to automate the transfer of grants application data from iApply into PlanView.

   Report, page 8

2. Recommendation 2

   PIRSA develop a policy, or amend existing policies or procedures, to address surge capacity in grants administration, including details as to: ⊲ the number and disbursement of specifically trained staff required at any given time to support surge ⊲ identification and selection of additional grants administration staff ⊲ training requirements (including content and frequency) of additional grants administration staff

   Report, page 8

3. Recommendation 3

   PIRSA develop proactive education and information-sharing strategies to inform the public about: ⊲ the eligibility criteria for emergency grants; and ⊲ the assessment processes in place to ensure that grants are awarded only to compliant applicants.

   Report, page 8

4. Recommendation 4

   PIRSA grants administration policy and procedures should include the requirement that staff declare any conflict of interests and relinquish their designated role as a grant assessor or approver where they assist a grant applicant with their application.

   Report, page 8

5. Recommendation 5

   PIRSA grants administration policy and procedures should require that staff, at the point of grant application assessment and approval/rejection, declare that they have no conflict of interests in respect of the application being considered. Department of Treasury and Finance (DTF)

   Report, page 8

6. Recommendation 6

   The principles applied and processes developed to implement the COVID-19 relief programs should be consolidated and documented for future reference.

   Report, page 9

7. Recommendation 7

   DTF grant administration policy and procedures should require that staff, at the point of grant application assessment and approval or rejection, and at the point of consideration of an appeal against a decision to reject a grant application, declare that they have no conflict of interests in respect of the application being considered.

   Report, page 9

8. Recommendation 8

   Agencies involved in emergency grants administration should consider the following strategies to mitigate the risks of corruption: 1. Establish emergency and adverse event grants arrangements in advance to support rapid activation and response, including strategies such as: ⊲ pre-arranging suppliers to support relief and recovery activities, including appropriate contractual arrangements for emergency activation ⊲ documenting key steps in emergency grants administration 2. Identifying potential sources of personnel inside and outside the agency to perform emergency response functions, including forming teams, and screening, training and exercising1 those teams to support the achievement of surge capacity2 when needed. 3. Identifying and establishing data sharing arrangements in South Australian government agencies where emergency grants programs support similar activities.

   Report, page 9

9. Recommendation 9

   The State continues to advocate for the availability of Australian Government data and information, and occupational classification that is current and accurate, to support effective due diligence by South Australian public sector agencies when administering emergency grants programs, including those delivered with support from the Australian Government via the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements.

   Report, page 10

Published responses

No published response was found.

Coverage

This publisher

• Office for Public Integrity: publishes only its annual reports (excluded); no OPI report or statement records.
• Since October 2021 the Commission does not make findings of corrupt conduct; most records have no findings.
• Government and agency responses are recorded only where the Commission's page links them or the report reproduces them; implementation status is not published by the Commission as structured data.
• Scanned reports without a text layer are not read (no OCR); their recommendations stay not_extracted.
• Recommendations are extracted only from numbered 'Recommendation N' lists; reports that set out recommendations in prose, tables or unnumbered lists keep recommendations_status not_extracted.
• Findings are extracted only from investigation reports that state them in the Commissioner's own words (Oakden 2018, Gillman 2015); public statements are not read for findings.