[Peetwo]

Airservices H&H sausage sizzle.(H&H: Houstoblame & Harfwit) 

Where: APH Can'tberra When: Ongoing throughout 2016 & 2017 Charity: OneSKY trough fund...

Oh dear Houston and Harfwit, the red flags are raised.

Investigation into Commonwealth government’s procurement, performance and risk
By Marie Sansom on October 19, 2016


Airservices Australia’s procurement of a new air traffic control system
will be investigated.
 
 
A raft of new inquiries will examine the Commonwealth government’s procurement methods, how it measures its own performance and the levels of risk it carries, including gauging the government’s success in reducing disability benefit claims, the reasons for cost blowouts at Nauru and Manus Island detention centres and Airservices Australia’s procurement of a new air traffic control system.

The Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (JCPAA) will tackle some controversial issues on the back of a number of Auditor-General audit reports including:

Commonwealth procurement

• Cost blowouts and “serious and persistent deficiencies” in the procurement of garrison support and welfare services at offshore processing centres on Nauru and Manus Island
  

• The delivery and monitoring of health services in offshore immigration detention centres
  

• Shortcomings in Airservices’ procurement of the OneSKY Australia system, which replaces Airservices Australiaa’s civil air traffic system and a Department of Defence system dealing with military air traffic.
  

Commonwealth performance framework

• Improving the reporting of performance by departments to strengthen their accountability, including in the Higher Education Loan Program
  

Commonwealth risk management

• Evaluating changes to the Disability Support Pension (DSP), including tightening up eligibility requirements and work capacity assessments. The 2012 changes aimed to shift more people off DSP and limit new claimants
  

Public sector governance

• Assessing whether the federal government’s deregulation agenda has been successful.
  

 
The JCPAA is a central committee of Parliament and has the power to initiate its own inquiries on the Commonwealth public sector. It examines all the reports of the Auditor-General tabled in the Parliament and can drill down into anything connected with these reports.

Newly-elected Committee Chair, Senator Dean Smith, said that the JCPAA examined whether public money was used efficiently, effectively and ethically.

“The JCPAA has an important role in holding Commonwealth agencies to account and our inquiries further strengthen the performance and accountability of agencies entrusted with billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money,” Senator Smith said.

“The Committee is focusing on common audit themes identified by the Auditor-General. By taking a thematic approach to these inquiries, the Committee seeks to encourage improvements and shared learning in key areas of public administration.”

Auditor-General’s reports were valuable because they identified areas for improvement in public administration and detailed examples of good public administration, he said.
The deadline for submissions to the inquiries is Monday November 7. Public hearings will be held from late November 2016.

Link to the article below;

http://www.governmentnews.com.au/2016/10...ance-risk/

TICK TOCK Sir An(g)us and Purple Haze. Muppets! Wasting taxpayer money, everyone can see that except for you two arseclowns. The sooner you are both gone the better.

P7 butt in - BLOODY BEAU-TI-FUL: GD. Double Choc Frog ration post.  Have a gold star.

When you are too deep in a hole; best stop digging.

Hansard; Monday, 17 October 2016 – pages 89 – 117 inclusive, become a remarkable document when viewed in hindsight and with the foresight of the JCPAA inquiries.  My six pages of notes and observations now redundant. Hoostoblame, Halfwit and the carefully workshopped ‘supporting’ documents are about to be subjected to a much more detailed scrutiny. About bloody time I say.  ASA is a very good place to start, IMO  it is the pinnacle of all things ‘wrong’ with the ‘autonomous’ system; having the ‘mystique’ of air safety as a trump card makes every hand an unquestioned winner. ASA has been taking the Mickey Bliss for many, many years now; the tales legend, the proof incontrovertible.

One would hope that the JCPAA take a peek at the CASA track record. AUD $300,000,000 and counting is not small change. The ridiculous Regulatory Reform ‘program’ has been a constant drain on meagre resources for decades; is still on going and has produced one the most diabolical, inutile, risible rule sets ever published. Providing both an international joke and a perfect example of how not to do it. Just the outrageous cost of this debacle, standing alone, should merit a full investigation which must start by tearing down the wispy curtain, around the ‘mystique’ which has, is and always will be used to terrify politicians who do not want even a hint of blood on their highly polished, best, #1 dancing boots.

It is disgusting that a series of ‘ministers’ have side stepped their very real responsibilities to the public and been more than happy to let CASA run the show, with unlimited, unchecked power and a key to the ATM of the public purse.

Aye well; I’ve not a lot of faith left to place in ‘official’ inquiries; too many important fingers in the money pie.  However, this latest seems to have a good pedigree; we shall see. But it will be interesting to see what the ASA come up with – in defence of their untenable situation. The Estimates committee did flag it – we should have, but didn’t pick up the clues; my own notes were heading toward a call for ‘an inquiry’ of some sort. But not the level we have been gifted; at best I hoped for Senate Inquiry (always fun).  I’ll own to being distracted by the volume of Halfwit ‘rhetoric’ (Latin for Pony-Pooh) and trying to isolate the howlers. I missed the clues. With hindsight – both O’Sullivan and Sterle almost forewarned us; even if that was ‘missed’ the unusually stony, normally ‘sunny’ countenance of Fiona Nash was a fine clue.  No excuses; I’ll go and sit with the other short, thick planks for a while.

I shall save the Halfwit’s bluster, bollocks and bullshit for Sunday rambles. Seems someone finally got the message and I may relax and simply enjoy debunking the myth of the legend and de-fluffing the faery tale. Much more fun.

Toot toot.

From JCPAA Parliamentary webpages:

Reviews of Auditor-General's reports

The Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (JCPAA) is required by the Public Accounts and Audit Committee Act 1951 to examine all reports of the Auditor-General which are tabled in the Parliament.

In performing its duties, the JCPAA works closely with the Auditor-General and the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO). The ANAO supports the Auditor–General to provide the Parliament with an independent assessment of selected areas of public administration, and assurance about public sector financial reporting, administration, and accountability.

The JCPAA's review procedures are built around a series of public hearings. At these hearings evidence is taken from agencies which have been the subject of recent 'significant' audit findings. The Committee may also elect to conduct reviews of audit reports using other means.

You will find further information about the JCPAA's review procedures for reports of the Auditor-General at Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit - Reviewing Reports of the Auditor-General.

From the provided link above:

..The referral of audit reports to other committees is appropriate in some circumstances - for example, where an audit report is relevant to a subject already being considered by another committee, or where an audit report deals with an issue in which another committee has developed a particular expertise.

However, it is important to note that the requirement to review described in the PAAC Act is not satisfied by the referral of an audit report to another committee. The Act is specific in its requirement that the JCPAA examine all audit reports.

While the JCPAA is conscious of avoiding unnecessary duplication, it intends to fulfil its obligation by examining all audit reports, including those which have been referred to other committees. In most cases it is likely that the JCPAA's examination will show that the other committee has reviewed, or is reviewing, the major issues identified in the audit report. However, there may be occasions when the JCPAA decides that further review is needed...

 
In addition via RRAT Estimates QON/Tabled docs webpage:

5.) Document titled ' Summary of Airservices Improvement Actions Relevant to ANAO Recommendations'. Tabled by Airservices Australia on 17 October 2016.

(PDF 2.01MB)

---

Additional Information

View File
1.) Airservices Australia's Accelerate Program: List of Number of Roles at each Classification Level Proposed for 30 June 2017. Received 18 October 2016.
(PDF 38KB)

And today 'from that man' via the Oz:

Airservices-OneSky to face Senate
12:00amEAN HIGGINS
A Senate committee is considering a new inquiry into Airservices Australia’s OneSky air traffic control program.

A Senate committee is considering launching a new inquiry to get to the bottom of suspect financial dealings surrounding Airservices Australia’s $1.5 billion OneSky air traffic control program.

The move follows dissatisfaction among senators across the political spectrum over Airservices’ handling of contracts for OneSky and the performance of the government-owned organisation’s chief executive Jason Harfield at a Senate hearing this week.

Mr Harfield came in for a grilling in the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee on Monday, with senators accusing him of trying to talk over his interrogators.

The committee’s chairman, National Party senator Barry O’Sullivan, deputy chairman, Labor senator Glenn Sterle, and independent senator Nick Xenophon took turns demanding answers following a damning report by the Australian National Audit Office into one aspect of Airservices’ contracting for OneSky.

Senator O’Sullivan revealed the committee was considering launching an inquiry into the broader issues of Airservices’ handling of OneSky.

“This committee is very concerned about the operations of your body,” Senator O’Sullivan told Mr Harfield and Airservices chief financial officer Paul Logan.

“So I too would urge you to get to the point — hair on it and all — because this is an ongoing matter. The committee sits on a deliberation as to whether it will have an inquiry into these matters, and it would certainly assist us if you were able to get to the heart of the question without too much window-dressing.”

In August the Audit Office tabled its much anticipated report on contract arrangements between Airservices and an obscure Canberra-based group with military links known as the International Centre for Complex Project Management.

Among the findings, Airservices paid ICCPM consultants up to $5000 a day over 18 months to advise on the OneSky project, which is designed to integrate the military and civilian air traffic control systems into a single state-of-the-art network by 2021.

“Overall, Airservices’ approach to contracting ICCPM was ineffective in providing value-for-money outcomes,” the Audit Office said in its report.

The report was particularly critical of the appointment of one ICCPM consultant, Harry Bradford, dubbed “the Million Dollar Man”. Airservices had engaged him (and paid more than $ 1 million) to negotiate on its behalf with the lead contractor for the OneSky project, European aerospace group Thales.

“Airservices did not apply any consideration to potential, actual, or perceived conflict of interest,” the report said.

At Monday’s hearing, Senator Xenophon asked Mr Harfield if any individual had “got their backside kicked”. Mr Harfield responded that there had been “counselling taken on how practices were not adhered to”, but, said “no one has done anything untoward”.

Senator Xenophon: “A noncompliance on probity issues is not untoward?”

Mr Harfield: “They were what we would call authorised exemptions to the probity practices.”

Senator O’Sullivan yesterday told The Australian any decision on whether to launch a new inquiry would be guided by all members of the committee, and most likely after the Audit Office tabled a further report in May after investigating Airservices’ appointment of Thales.

But he said his impression was that senators across the committee were “dissatisfied with what they have before them” and that they would not rest until convinced its administration was “100 per cent right”.

Senator Sterle said he would “support any motion from the committee to have a further inquiry into Airservices”.

MTF...P2