Australia Takes Major Defence Finance Initiative

Australian Department of Defence, A major financial controls project has today been launched internally within the Department of Defence to address financial and audit issues and to build a best practice financial management environment for Defence.  
 
The Secretary of the Department of Defence, Mr Richard Smith said the adoption of the framework will be a significant cultural change for all staff working in finance-related roles across Defence.  
 
“At its core the framework will provide all Defence personnel with access to a comprehensive and integrated source of the policies, processes and procedures necessary to manage all financial aspects of our business.  
 
“Another key element of the framework is a structured program of internal reviews to look for and rectify problems. This will allow Defence to avoid ongoing adverse external audit findings by addressing issues in business operations before they are discovered and documented by the external auditors.  
 
“Many of the policies already exist and there are a number that are currently under development, but in general they are difficult to access, vary in format and are quite dispersed in their location. Within the framework all policies will be made readily available to users with clearly defined linkages to both associated processes and procedures.”  
 
Mr Smith said that in the past several years Defence had invested a great deal of time and effort in a major set of remediation projects to address significant deficiencies in its financial statements.  
 
“We have made some good progress but we still have a long way to go.  
 
“I should stress that the Financial Controls Framework Project is not just another remediation project. This is a very significant change management program.”  
 
The Chief of the Defence Force, General Peter Cosgrove said that efficient, effective and competent financial management was not just the preserve of the finance domain experts.  
 
“This responsibility rests with all of us, whether military or civilian. If we don't get the fundamentals of our finances fixed, then operational success will not be sustained.”