Catchment Action NSW funding evaluation




Status:

Advice provided

Advice date:

November 2015

Summary

Catchment Action NSW is the NSW Government’s regionally-delivered project funding to address state natural resource management priorities. Since 2008, these funds have been allocated using our six-stage decision-making process that uses multi-criteria analysis as a decision support tool. The process is transparent, repeatable, adaptable, and aims to maximise likely return on investment.

The then Office of Environment and Heritage requested us to carry out a mid-term review of Local Land Services’ delivery of Catchment Action NSW funding in 2014-15.

In 2015, we provided a final report which found that:

  • Local Land Services are delivering projects that align with a broad interpretation of the funding themes under the agreement, including biodiversity conservation, threatened species, Aboriginal cultural heritage and native vegetation management
  • an assessment of Local Land Services project plans against the Performance Standard for Local Land Services indicated they are likely to be delivering the intended outcomes
  • several barriers and transitional issues at the state level including Local Land Services’ organisational immaturity, lack of effective risk management and limited communication with regions, prevented Local Land Services from fully meeting the intent of the Catchment Action NSW program in 2014-15. Despite these constraints, Local Land Services have the capacity to fully deliver on the intent of the program in coming years, providing they continue to work with the then Office of Environment and Heritage to clarify investment and reporting expectations, improve state-scale communication and reporting processes, and make ongoing improvements to regional project planning and quality assurance.

We made recommendations to address ongoing risks to successful delivery of Catchment Action NSW funding.

Key documents