Victoria's annual infrastructure investment is four times higher than it was in 2015–16, and other states are also boosting their investment in major projects. 

Victoria's 2021–22 state Budget noted that the state has $144 billion of new and existing projects funded and underway, up 35 per cent from the 2019–20 state Budget. Of these, $111 billion are major projects. This has led to pressure on the market’s capacity and shortages in skills and resources, which makes it harder for the government to deliver projects on time and on budget.

Agencies were required to self‐attest to the accuracy and completeness of their survey response. The survey sought information on the status of performance audit recommendations:

• from all VAGO performance audits tabled in Parliament in 2018–19 to 2019–20 and two audits that tabled in early 2020–21
• that were reported to us in our 2020 survey as unresolved from audits tabled in 2015–16 to 2017–18.

In total, the survey included 1 063 recommendations from 76 audits involving 102 agencies. 

Departments reported more timely completion rates for recommendations from 2015–16 to 2020–21. Departments completed recommendations from 2018–19 quicker than previous years, as overall completion rates dropped from a median of 35 months to in 2017–18 to 13 months in 2018–19. 

Figures E1 to E4 show a breakdown of between-year trends of department completion times. Due to the short timeframe between reviewing and publishing, we included only two audits from 2020–21. This is why we have excluded 2020–21 in the figures. 

This review includes 1 063 recommendations in 76 audits. We have listed audited agencies with recommendations in these audits below.

FIGURE D1: 2020–21 audits and agencies

We have consulted with the agencies listed in Appendix D, and we considered their views when reaching our review findings. As required by the Audit Act 1994, we gave a draft copy of this report to those agencies and asked for their submissions and comments. 

Responsibility for the accuracy, fairness and balance of those comments rests solely with the agency head.

We consulted with the audited agencies and considered their views when reaching our conclusions. The agencies’ responses are in Appendix A. 

When do agencies accept our recommendations?

We asked the audited agencies to tell us whether they accepted our recommendations both before we tabled their report and at the time we conducted our review. 

The Auditor‐General provides independent assurance to the Parliament of Victoria and the Victorian community on the performance of the state and local government public sectors.

Our performance audits assess whether agencies have effective programs and services and whether they are using their resources economically and efficiently. We also identify activities that work well and reflect better practice.