To provide independent and consistent costings of policies developed by registered political parties and other candidates for the March 2018 South Australian election.

The high level objective is:

• To provide accurate and independent costings of policies submitted by political candidates in a timely manner and in a form which is useful to the candidates for informing the public in advance of the March 2018 South Australian election.

The associated objectives are:

• To deal with requests in such a way that the identity of parties and candidates using the services of the Parliamentary Budget Advisory Service (PBAS) and all associated communications and documentation remain confidential.

To respond to requests promptly and courteously.

Nil

The PBAS was established under the Public Sector Act 2009 as an attached office to the Department of Treasury and Finance.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) was the Chief Executive of PBAS.

Three costing and advice teams reported to the Deputy Parliamentary Budget Officer.

An administration team of two was headed by an Office Manager.

The PBO was responsible to the Premier and the Treasurer for contributing to the attainment of the whole-of-Government objectives that relate to the functions or operations of the PBAS and for the attainment of the performance objectives set under his employment contract.

The PBO was responsible to the Under Treasurer for the effective management of PBAS and for the general conduct of its employees.

The PBO reported to the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment as delegate of the Premier.

Department of Treasury and Finance.

Data is available at: https://data.sa.gov.au/data/dataset/department-of-treasury-and-finance-annual-report-statistics

Data is available at: https://data.sa.gov.au/data/dataset/department-of-treasury-and-finance-annual-report-statistics

For further information, the Office for the Public Sector has a data dashboard on the breakdown of executive gender, salary and tenure by agency

The following is a summary of the external consultants that were engaged by the agency, the nature of work undertaken and the total cost of the work undertaken.

See also https://www.tenders.sa.gov.au/tenders/index.do for a list of all external consultancies, including nature of work and value.

See also the Consolidated Financial Report of the Department of Treasury and Finance http://treasury.sa.gov.au/ for total value of consultancy contracts across the SA Public Sector.

The following is a summary of external contractors that have been engaged by the agency, the nature of work undertaken and the total cost of the work undertaken.

The details of all South Australian Government-awarded contracts for goods, services, and works are displayed on the SA Tenders and Contracts website here.

The website also provides details of across government contracts here.

The following is a brief summary of the overall financial performance of the agency. Full audited financial statements for 2017-18 are attached to this report.

The budget for PBAS for 2017‑18 was $1.75 million. The nominal PBAS establishment comprised thirteen staff members, not all of them fulltime.

The office was established on approximately one-third of the sixth floor of 45 Grenfell Street in space previously vacated by the Attorney-General’s Department. PBAS assumed responsibility for the rental cost but was able to make use almost entirely of existing office fit-out and some existing IT equipment. Expense was incurred in acquiring other IT equipment and some office equipment and in establishing IT systems. Certain specialist support services such as management accounting, human resources and IT were provided free of charge by DTF but Shared Services SA was paid for routine financial processing and the preparation of the annual financial statements.

These arrangements, together with the staged transfer of analysts and their prompt return to DTF once the costing period was over, kept costs to a minimum. In the event, the demands on PBAS were comfortably met with a staff of seven (6.2 FTE), resulting in a significant saving.

Total expenditure incurred was $657 000 of which $462 000 was for salaries and wages, $106 000 for accommodation and related costs, $25 000 for IT and $64 000 for support and administration costs.

Nil to report.

Not applicable.

The Carers’ Recognition Act is deemed applicable for the following: Department for Communities and Social Inclusion, Department for Education and Child Development, Department for Health and Ageing, Department of State Development, Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure, South Australia Police and TAFE SA.

Not applicable.

Audited financial statements 2017-18 (1.1 MB PDF)