The Authority continued to improve its risk management capability in 2018–19 by further integrating its framework and accompanying risk assessment tools into daily business activities.

Improvement work was informed by an independent review of the Authority’s risk register, and the annual assessment of the Authority’s risk management maturity, provided through participation in Comcover’s risk management benchmarking program. The overall maturity of the Authority’s risk management framework in 2018–19 was sustained at an advanced level. Oversight of the Authority’s risk management framework is regularly provided by the Audit Committee.

The internal and external audit functions continue to provide independent assurance to the Authority on the integrity and reliability of operational, financial and fraud risk mitigation arrangements that are in place.

Fraud control

The Authority’s Fraud Control Policy and Plan is consistent with the Australian Government fraud control policy, and Resource Management Guide No. 201 (preventing, detecting and dealing with fraud), and gives effect to the fraud control provisions of the PGPA Act and rule 10 of the PGPA Rule.

The fraud control policy and plan is also aligned with AS8001–2008 Fraud and corruption control.

In 2018–19, the Authority undertook a comprehensive assessment of its fraud risks to identify where additional treatments should be implemented to minimise the opportunity for, and the incidence of, fraud. Correspondingly, the Authority’s Fraud Control Policy and Plan was also reviewed and updated.

A new fraud incident investigation policy and fraud – suspected incident reporting form were implemented to provide information on how incidents of suspected or discovered fraud are investigated and to facilitate the reporting of suspected fraud incidents.

Collectively, the fraud risk assessment and corresponding fraud control framework continue to:

• facilitate appropriate fraud prevention, detection, investigation, reporting and data collection in a way that meets the specific needs of the Authority
• reduce the incidence of fraud in the Authority, as much as is reasonably practicable
• facilitate the process to recover the proceeds of fraud against the Authority.

Five enquiries regarding suspected fraud were made to the Authority’s fraud liaison officer during 2018–19. One remains subject to a final assessment and there was insufficient evidence to support the other four allegations.