Greater transparency on sport funding

The auditor-general has called on the state government to ensure transparency and accountability across community-level sport and recreation funding decisions. 

Tabled in parliament on Thursday, the Funding for Community Sport and Recreation report audited approximately $298 million of state government funding to the industry - provided by the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries - between 2021-22 and 2022-23.

While praising the DLGSC's handling process around assessing and approving projects involved in the Community Sporting and Recreation Facilities Fund to the value of $36.3 million, auditor-general Caroline Spencer said the state government didn't apply the same framework to sport and recreation projects that were either funded via the $5.8 billion WA Recovery Plan, established in 2020, or 2021 state election commitments.

“The CSRFF projects were approved by the minister for sport and recreation based on their priority and benefit to the community," Ms Spencer said. 

“However, the state government did not require sport and recreation projects stemming from 2021 election commitments, around $136 million, or the WA Recovery Plan, $125 million, to be assessed against published criteria as part of an entity grant program.

“The practices used by government to select, assess and approve these projects were not transparent and therefore the public and parliament cannot be assured public money has been fairly and equitably awarded to communities. 

“It is not clear how the merit of some of these projects was assessed, and there is no public transparency on why some projects were funded and others were not.

“Good principles for government spending ensure money is awarded fairly and equitably, and generally include publicly available criteria and merit selection, irrespective of the origin of the announcement or the dollar value of the project."

In all, 16 projects were funded through the WA Recovery Plan, with the state government separately identifying and selecting 12 of them, with the remaining four assessed by the DLGSC.   

“While there is some publicly available information about what was funded, the information is patchy,” the report said.

Additionally, Ms Spencer said her office had created an interactive project dashboard, which allowed members of the public and parliament to view information about approved sport and recreation projects, along with detailed comparative funding information in regards to specific local government and electorate areas.

In reponse, the DLGSC said it took on board all of the recommendations and would implement them. 

"It is pleasing to note that the recommendations included in this report are low risk and demonstrate the DLGSC’s ability to effectively apply sound grant policies and procedures as well as assess and approve grant applications in a transparent and equitable manner," the DLGSC said.

"It is noted that DLGSC was not involved in the assessment or approval of WA Recovery Plan projects and election commitments.

"The DLGSC will implement the recommendations within this report and continue to review its administration of funding for community sport and recreation in line with key principles within the Western Australian Grants Administration Guidelines 2022."