FINANCIAL REPORT
CCDR reported the following expenditure to the Department of Health and Aged Care (Health) in August 2023. Our final report was originally due on 31 July 2022 however we were granted an extension up to 19 August 2022. On 14 July 2022, a new financial template was submitted to CCDR where we were asked to prepare all of our financials, both grant related and non-grant related, into the following periods:
June 2018 – December 2019
January 2019 – October 2019
November 2019 – October 2020
November 2020 – October 2021
November 2021 – June 2022
An additional was made by CCDR to have an additional 8 days to complete our final report. The rationale was that the Hon Mark Butler MP, Minister for Health and Aged Care had listed CCDR’s Chief Executive as a finalist in his award for nursing trailblazers which required travelling to Darwin for the best part of a week, right when the report was due. A second rationale was that a staff member received some sad family news and had to resign. The news was a shock as it was someone we cared about. This request was denied.
CCDR submitted the final report directly to Brendan Murphy on 19 August 2022. CCDR had the following requests, notes and clarifications:
– CCDR requested that the acquittal of our grant be moved to a person within Health that we mutually agree on, who is not within the Primary Care division and can be independent. CCDR noted we would also appreciate someone who we can discuss the final report with in a respectful and inclusive way.
– CCDR noted that we were not funded to participate in the external evaluation and costs associated with additional program and accounting work have not been provided by Health
– CCDR noted that the outstanding items which would be sent through shortly were:
- Questionnaire completed by all patient organisations in relation to funding received as we were awaiting three organisations to complete these forms with one group indicating that they would not be able to complete the form until end of August.
- In relation to financial reporting and declaration, CCDR noted our accounts are in order and we have no concerns providing this information, however we had only just finalised our annual accounts (delayed by 4 weeks due to Covid), we then turned attention to quarterly BAS and have swiftly moved to work with our accountant on preparing the very specific template provided by Health which asks us to re-arrange our account reporting periods. CCDR noted our accountant is a sole trader, and is doing their best to complete this. The accountant has indicated they would complete the report by 19 August 2022, however they were unable to with their own competing priorities, and indicated they would complete the report within a week. CCDR would get sign off immediately from the Chair of the Board to submit this to Health.
– A direct question was asked by Mr Chris Bedford as to whether a discrete telehealth nurse was employed under contract (or alternate arrangement) to deliver each of the Telehealth services. The answer to this was yes. Each service has had one (or more depending on the service) staff employed under contract (or alternate arrangement) assigned to the delivery of each Telehealth service, noting that every individual assigned to each service had additional organisational duties in addition to direct patient contact.
– CCDR noted a meeting of partners had been set by Health however a number of groups including Liver Cancer Support Australia, Ehlers Danlos Australia and NMOSD Australia were not invited to be involved in this consultation. CCDR provided the contact point for these volunteer-only groups and would appreciate advice on whether these groups will be included going forward.
CCDR received email confirmation on 23 August 2022 from Brendan Murphy that all final report documents had been received.
In addition, an email was received on 6 September 2022 from People, Communication and Parliamentary Division, Corporate Operations Group People Branch stating that Mr Chris Bedford was made aware our documents were available.
Despite providing all information requested within reason and confirmation of receipt, a Notice of Remedy was issued on 14 September 2022 from Mr Chris Bedford on basis that “Consistent with seeking to discharge its legal, administrative and policy obligations, the Department has sought to obtain the Reporting Material and other information requested from you. Despite several attempts to obtain these from you, the Department has still not received all of the Reporting Material and other information requested.”
CCDR had provided all materials requested. Some information requested appeared to be unreasonable and not consistent with our Grant Agreement and/or indicated unilateral changes to the agreed indicators. Where this was the case, CCDR provided reasonable information and explanations as to how we felt the requested information was not aligned with the original agreement.
Financial Report
CCDR was not provided with any rationale for the need to include all of our expenses in the financial report. Nevertheless, CCDR prepared a report with all of our financial information. As we had not been given adequate notice of this request and as it came at an additional cost to our organisation in accounting fees, CCDR prepared the report with our full financials that was aligned with our annual report schedule (noting CCDR run on a calendar year for financial reporting). The template and calculations provided by Health were used for this report. In good faith, CCDR also prepared a financial report with grant expenditure only for the periods requested by Health. The cost of additional accounting was $1,100.
CCDR provided our rational for this action however were nevertheless issued with a Notice of Remedy on 14 September 2022 by Chris Bedford claiming CCDR had not been compliant. CCDR asked Prof Brendan Murphy for the Notice of Remedy to be expunged, however this was denied by Chris Bedford and since then, no-one in Health has been able to inform us of the process to appeal a Notice of Remedy. CCDR wrote again to Brendan Murphy, copying Mr Simon Cotterell and Mr Nick Martin on 31 October 2022 explaining again the rationale for approaching our final report in the way that we did and asking for a meeting to discuss.
Table 1: Full financial report by CCDR annual report schedule
Table 2: Financial report (expenditure only) by time-frames requested by Health
In his Notice of Remedy, Mr Bedford noted that there were discrepancies between the reports. Specific discrepancies were not identified. CCDR’s accountant again reviewed the reports and could not find any discrepancies beyond the difference of one report having all CCDR’s income and expenditure and the other, not having this.
History of acquittal process
On 1 November 2022, CCDR wrote to Brendan Murphy again.
In this letter CCDR reiterated our commitment to the Pathways program, while not requiring our portion of the funding to maintain our position as program lead.
CCDR noted that we felt that a supportive working environment to engage with the Primary Care Division had not been made available to us, however CCDR hoped to have a productive working relationship with Health in the future and were committed to this. This however needed to be done in a respectful way.
CCDR again noted that we felt it inappropriate to be made to work with the Primary Care Division while a code of conduct complaint was active.
CCDR had the understanding that there would be an external review of the code of conduct complaint. CCDR noted that the People, Communication and Parliamentary Division, Corporate Operations Group People Branch had indicated that a decision had already been made that a certain officer within the Primary Care Division was not considered to be part of our complaint. Information about how this determination was reached was requested however, CCDR were yet to receive any advice about this.
CCDR provided information again to clarify that all materials had been submitted and/or a reasonable explanation provided.
In relation to program data requested, CCDR noted:
– Previously our understanding was that data should be provided in various time periods. The most recent advice indicates that data for the complete program period is sufficient (provided the timeframe for the data is indicated). At different times both ‘all program data’ and ‘data up to 31 May 2022’ has been requested by Health. We have provided here ‘all program data’ up to 30 June 2022.
– Tables indicating time spent on consultation and follow-up have been provided. This was previously requested as Tables 2.2 and 2.3 “timing”. In the most recent report, these tables relate to the time of day/month of consultation however clarification by Health indicates the requested information was in relation to time spent with patients. Health subsequently changed this request to indicate they wanted tables 2.4 and 2.4 in relation to the duration of the consultation and follow-up. These tables have been provided.
CCDR noted these things as the instructions from Health were not always clear or consistent, yet CCDR was accused of not being compliant.
On 25 November 2022, CCDR received a letter from Mr Chris Bedford. The letter claimed, without reasonable explanation, that the documents provided by CCDR “do not contain complete and consistent information. Therefore, as the responsible delegate, I remain unable to acquit the grant.”
The letter included a table of items which Mr Chris Bedford claimed indicated non-compliances with the Notice of Remedy issued.
CCDR note that within this table was additional information not previously requested and included requests for information that were not aligned with the original grant agreement and/or indicated a departure from the agreed indicators.
“Please note this is the Grantee’s final opportunity to remedy non-compliances and, as such, the Department will not afford the Grantee any additional opportunities. Furthermore, this letter does not limit any other rights the Department may have under the Grant Agreement, in equity or at law against the Grantee and all these rights are expressly reserved.
You have requested the Department expunge the Notice to Remedy and the follow up to the Notice to Remedy of 20 October 2022. Please be advised that the Department does not intend to expunge either of these.”
CCDR was given 14 days to respond to the list of questions compiled by Health. CCDR are happy to provide reasobable clarifications, however the list contained over 40 points of clarification, many of which indicated to CCDR that unilateral changes had been made to the grant agreement and/or agreed indicators.
On 8 December 2022, CCDR informed Brendan Murphy that while our organisation is highly professional, a 14 day deadline is not possible given the nature and extent of the requests, and considering we engage an external accountant that we need to coordinate with to check and prepare financial reports.
CCDR committed to using our best endeavours to provide all reasonable information and clarifications requested, where the requests are aligned with our grant agreement and agreed performance indicators. We noted that the end of the year was approaching and our organisation had planned work, and planned staff leave through to January. We also noted that much of our work involves delivering clinical services which must always take priority.
The given the language used by Mr Chris Bedford in the correspondence, a 14 day period also did not allow CCDR reasonable time to engage any legal review of the correspondence or our response to it.
On 16 December 2022, despite Mr Chris Bedford stating no time extension would be possible to respond to the questions and clarifications requested by Health, CCDR was then informed that an external process – taking more time than the extension CCDR requested – would now be implemented.
“As previously mentioned, the Department has legal, administrative and policy obligations to ensure that the funds paid under the Grant are properly spent. To this end, and in the spirit of collaboration with a view to assisting the Grantee to meet its obligations under the Grant, the Department will engage an external provider to undertake an independent assurance review of the Grant. The purpose of this non-partisan assurance review is to assess and review the administration and performance of the Grant. Initially, the assurance review will involve an assessment of publicly available information (such as information published on websites) and information the Grantee has already provided the Department. The Grantee will be notified whether additional information is required by the external provider to support the assurance review and acquittal of the Grant.”
CCDR were informed that this would happen in January 2023 however we did not hear anything about the process until late February 2023.
In the meantime, CCDR prepared a comprehensive presentation addressing each and every question noted by Mr Chris Bedford to ensure any claims that we had not been compliant, were dismissed. This presentation was sent to Prime Minister and Cabinet as CCDR felt we were being victimised by Health after many requests for our grant to be removed from the Primary Care Division. CCDR also sent this to Corporate Assurance Branch, Legal & Assurance Division. CCDR understands that this presentation has not been viewed by anyone within government and not been taken into account, yet a viewing of this would likely result in Health being able to acquit our grant.
On 16 December 2022, CCDR wrote to Brendan Murphy again asking for the Primary Care Division to be removed from our grant. CCDR requested:
– that if there was to be an external evaluation, the provider contact us before commencing the assurance review so that we may provide the relevant documents directly and provide an overview of the program with them before the assessment is commenced. CCDR noted that Health had only taken interest in our program in the last six months of the grant, and as evidence by many the questions being asked of us, we can see that the Health has a very limited understanding of the first three and a half years of the program as there was no support or engagement offered by Health, despite our own attempts to engage. We also note that the grant activity ended many months ago and the proposed assessment of publicly available information for example is not appropriate.
On 17 December 2022, CCDR wrote again to Brendan Murphy. Given that AUD 200,000 had been previously earmarked for the evaluation of our program, CCDR was concerned that more public funds were being used to review our grant. CCDR noted that there had already been a disproportionate amount of money spent on the external evaluation of the program earlier in the year and noted that in Mr Chris Bedford’s letter it appears to again have a component of assessing performance.
CCDR had previously suggested that all that needed to happen was to assign an alternative point of contact outside the Primary Care Division to acquit our grant. We anticipated it would take about an hour to resolve any questions that needed clarification.
CCDR noted the only thing complicating the grant acquittal was inaccurate assumptions and conclusions made by Mr Chris Bedford and what seems to be the addition of requirements that were not part of the grant agreement.
By 19 January 2023, CCDR had not received any information about the proposed review. CCDR wrote to Brendan Murphy stating that until we are able to come to a mutually acceptable agreement, CCDR does not consent to our information being shared with a third party and individuals at CCDR did not consent to any personal information being shared with a third party.
CCDR reiterated that we had asked many times that the Primary Care Division, not contact anyone in our organisation and provided the reasons for this, however this is continually disrespected. We again request to be provided with a point of contact within the Health that is not part of the current code of conduct complaint.
CCDR had still not heard anything from Health about the acquittal of our grant and reached out to Corporate Assurance Branch, Legal & Assurance Division on 16 February 2023. In the correspondence, CCDR requested to meet with anyone at all within Health that is not part of the complaint, but this had not been acknowledged. CCDR again asked if it was possible to sit with someone to go through the grant and process the acquittal.
CCDR also asked about the process to appeal the Notice of Remedy that had been issued. To date, no-one within government is able to provide advice on the process to appeal a Notice of Remedy.
On 27 February 2023, CCDR received notification from Corporate Assurance Branch, Legal & Assurance Division that an independent review of our grant would be conducted by the firm KMPG. CCDR requested that:
– Health hold off sending any documentation to KPMG until CCDR were able to properly consider the letter sent about the grant acquittal process, and have our information and understanding ready for discussion
– Health send CCDR a list of the documents they consider are necessary to send to KPMG
– It be noted that this process is separate to the code of conduct matter, and that CCDR are keen to understand which documents are being used in which process before the KPMG review
– It be noted that CCDR had prepared several reports and responded to several information requests and in anticipation of finalising the acquittal, had prepared our presentation on our administration of the grant.
– Health confirms that they can provide the list of proposed documents, that we can set a time for us to talk with Health before proceeding and asked for confirmation that no documents will be provided to KPMG
As at 18 March 2022,CCDR has requested twice to discuss what Health feel was missing that has led to the need for a KPMG review. This request has not been accepted. The only response CCDR has had is that Health maintains files in a system called TRIM and these files will be made available to KMPG.
