27 Management of Government Property. Attention has been invited over a period of several years to long delays between the leasing of office accommodation by the Government and its occupation by departments and to the sub- stantial expenditure which is thereby incurred on rents in respect of vacant premises. Following my comments revised procedures were introduced to secure earlier occupation of newly leased offices, but cases continue to come to notice in which unacceptably lengthy periods elapse between the commencement of leases and the utilisation of the accom- modation. In one such case the fitting out work, at an estimated cost of only $80,000, was not completed until some nine months after the start of the lease period, during which time the rent paid for the empty offices totalled approximately $130,000. In another, additional fitting out requirements costing an estimated $75,000 were considered to be necessary after the initial work had commenced and this delayed the occupation of the accommodation from 13 weeks to a total of 25 weeks, rent paid during the extra 12 weeks of unoccupancy amounting to some $180,000. In yet a third case, whilst overall the time between the commencement of the lease and the occupation of the premises was of shorter duration, the time taken to complete the fitting out plans and estimates took a total of three months, three times the standard guideline time. The rental payment incurred during the additional two months was over $110,000.
28 An occurrence of a rather different nature, but one involving a substantial underutilisation of leased offices for a lengthy period, arose in respect of the provision of accommodation for use by a newly established unit of the Medical and Health Department. On this occasion there was no undue delay in fitting out and the accommodation was ready for occupation by the unit early in May 1976. Unfortunately however, because of a decision to defer the implementa- tion of the legislation under which the unit was to operate, the space is still largely unoccupied and I understand that it is likely to remain so until January 1978, by which time rent and other charges amounting to over $275,000 will have been incurred. I have suggested that a little more co-ordination between the department and the Government Secretariat might have permitted the accommodation to be reallocated and to have been put to more intensive use.
29 In this connection it will be recalled that I have previously expressed the view that responsibility for the control of Government property, including leased property, is unduly fragmented and that it would be desirable to establish a central authority to ensure that property requirements are correctly identified, that acquisitions and disposals are timely and appropriate, and that the resources available are deployed to optimum advantage. I understand that this question is now under consideration and that a comprehensive survey of Government property is being undertaken to gather all the essential facts on what is owned and leased, how it is utilised, and what sort of organisation is needed to manage it properly.
30 Head 34 – Education Department. Subhead 009. Temporary staff. In paragraph 2 above I point to the reliance which in audit I have to place on the systems of internal control operated by individual departments and in previous reports I have repeatedly stressed that the best internal control procedures can be nullified and loss and fraud facilitated if supervisory officers, either knowingly or by lack of proper care, do not ensure the correctness of the certificates which they render on accounts and vouchers. It is disturbing therefore once more to have to report a case in which this has occurred and which was observed during the audit of fees paid to part-time lecturers at Technical Institutes and Adult Education classes. Payment schedules were not subjected to a check adequate enough to enable certifying officers to be satisfied of the correctness of the documents they were signing, and in some cases payments had been made to lecturers in advance of their lectures being delivered, although the vouchers had been certified that the services for which payment was made had already been performed. The Director of Accounting Services has advised the Director of Education that the level of control exercised over the payments left much to be desired and is co-operating with him in establishing a revised system of recording and processing the payment of the fees.
31 Head 34 - Education Department. Subhead 999 020. School fees. The fee remission scheme in secondary schools, operated by the Government at a cost in the academic year 1975-76 of about $23 million, is designed to ensure that pupils are not denied places solely by reason of their parents' inability to pay the appropriate fees, entitlement to the remission being assessed on the basis of information supplied by the parents or guardians of the pupils. An audit review of the working of the scheme indicated a number of weaknesses in the procedure which, because of administrative error or the provision of incorrect information by applicants, could give rise to the grant of remission in excess of the true entitlement. In a sample examination of application forms from five Government secondary schools, it was found that three schools had not complied with the prescribed formula for the grant of remission and had allowed excess remissions conservatively estimated at $44,000. If this sample is representative, excess remissions from this cause in all Government secondary schools could amount to well over $200,000. Moreover there seemed to be little safeguard against error or fraud on the part of the applicants, which could also result in remissions being granted improperly.
32 Whilst my review covered only schools in the public sector, there is evidence that the situation is not dissimilar in respect of aided and private schools, where even assuming the provision of correct information by applicants in all cases, excess remissions could be of the order of $750,000. The Director of Education has agreed that there are clearly aspects of control which ought to be tightened and he has established a Working Group within his department to investigate the scheme's procedures so as to strengthen them in the areas of weakness to which I have invited attention. It had been hoped that a full revision of the procedures could have been introduced in time for the start of the academic
year 1977-78, but this did not prove possible and as an interim measure Heads of schools were reminded of the necessity of following closely the present prescribed procedures for processing applications and the grant of remission.
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