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Section 3 - Management and accountability
The Department’s three corporate areas, Corporate and Business Division, Legal Group and Finance and Budgets Group provide operational support and strategic advice to the executive and to staff. Issues covered include areas such as procurement, human resources, governance, public relations, whole-of-government policy coordination, parliamentary liaison, resource management and budgeting, legal advice, freedom of information, records management, and information technology.
Indigenous program delivery
On 1 July 2004, as part of new administrative arrangements for the delivery of Indigenous programs, the Department assumed responsibility for Indigenous programs in four areas: broadcasting, sport and recreation, language, and arts and culture. These programs were transferred with an annual budget of approximately $42 million from the former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services agency. Eighty-nine staff, 70 of whom were located in the newly-established Indigenous coordination centres in regional and metropolitan areas around Australia, were transferred to the Department to manage the programs and provide corporate support.
To ensure that priority was given to the important task of integrating the transferred programs with those of the Department, a high-level steering committee chaired by the Secretary was established to oversee the integration process.
A major priority for the Department was to establish an effective regional network to support and monitor the programs. This was particularly challenging as the Department had formerly been Canberra-based, without a state or regional network. In addition, the staff transferred to the Department were relatively junior, 43 per cent being at or below the APS4 level.
The network structure was reviewed and a revised regional network structure was developed and established in November 2004. This was necessary to ensure that the Department could participate actively in the various Commonwealth–state manager forums and liaise closely with Indigenous coordination centre managers on all aspects of whole-of-government program delivery, particularly shared responsibility agreements.
The revised structure includes a state leadership team with a Canberra-based regional network manager to oversee overall operations, and an EL2 state manager and at least one EL1 assistant state manager in every state except Tasmania, which is managed from Victoria.
Operationally, the Regional Network has been incorporated into the Corporate and Business Division.