States’ views/needs Sample Clauses

States’ views/needs. During our meetings with officers of the nominated XXXx, a number of comments were made about the information requirements of the Commonwealth as part of the CSHA. The most significant issues have been summarised below. While the SHAs visited recognise that they have a reporting responsibility to the Commonwealth, they are particularly interested in reducing the administrative burden. In some states preparation of the CSHA reporting required two SHA members of staff two months to compile after finalisation of the annual report. In another territory information was still not received by the Commonwealth until over six months after the finalisation of the annual report. In addition, as detailed in Section 4.2 of this report it was found that the financial information required by the Commonwealth was not representative of the financial reporting already being prepared by the states for management purposes. This comment was also relevant for the information requirements for the performance indicators, which were often difficult to compile. There was some concern that the costs of collecting the information outweighed the benefits. A number of solutions were put forward as to how the Commonwealth can assist the states and territories, including: • ensuring that the required format of financial reporting aligns with SHAs’ internal reporting formats so that manipulation of information is kept to a minimum; • ensuring that definitions used within the reporting framework are unambiguous and reflect the operations of the SHAs. It was also apparent from talks with some states that they would like to be able to benchmark their operations against those of the other SHAs. The current perception is that meaningful comparisons of SHA results are not possible as financial and other information is not compiled in a consistent way. Consequently, it is difficult for the SHAs to judge their performance and there is no real incentive to improve operations. This is being addressed by the implementation of national and bilateral agreements. During our review, the states identified a number of other issues that will affect their funding requirements in the future. These issues arise mainly due to the policy direction of the SHAs, and should be taken into account during any analysis of the information. In particular, the following was highlighted: • Waiting lists are now being more strategically targeted, so that assistance is given to those in most need of assistance. Consequently...