Annual accountability

On this page

• The purpose, objectives and outcomes of annual accountability
• How we use the information you submit
• The importance of annual accountability, and how it supports our partnerships
• How annual accountability assists us to meet our obligations

The purpose, objectives and outcomes of annual accountability

Purpose

Annual accountability is a mandatory process that ensures your organisation is accountable for the funding it receives and the services it’s agreed to deliver on our behalf.

Context

As an annual checkpoint for performance, it’s designed to work with the regular performance monitoring that forms part of our ongoing engagement with you.

The nature of that engagement is described in the Charter for working with contracted service providers.

In the charter, we commit to working with service providers to achieve the outcomes agreed in contracts. Service providers, in turn, ensure their organisations support stable and outcomes-focused service delivery.

Annual accountability is a practical demonstration of both parties honouring those commitments.

Objectives and outcomes

The annual accountability process, and the information requested from service providers, is designed to achieve four objectives.

Importantly, the outcomes of the process — areas for improvement by DCJ, individual service providers and the sector in general — act as risk controls to guarantee service delivery.

To make these outcomes possible, we’ve designed a process that’s able to deal with:

• contracts that range in value from several thousand dollars to tens-of-millions
• a broadening range of service providers and an increasing number of commercial players, differing markedly in size and nature, as well as in the number and value of contracts held.

How we use the information you submit

The information we collect enables DCJ to meet various responsibilities during and after the annual accountability process.

The information is a key input to the annual accountability assessments. It enables us to verify funds are being used as agreed in the contract, key elements of the contract are being complied with, and performance requirements are being met.

Insight gained from the information feeds into the commissioning process to assist with forward planning for programs. This insight also provides useful information to guide policies and processes, and how we can build on positive outcomes for programs.

The information may be used to investigate significant issues, complaints and allegations of misconduct. It also provides us with relevant information when we're required to respond to requests from regulators or report to government.

The importance of annual accountability, and how it supports our partnerships

The annual accountability process contributes to the continual improvement of performance by DCJ and the service sector.

From DCJ’s perspective, annual accountability offers a detailed picture of the current capacity and performance of our service providers. This, in turn, gives a snapshot of the strength and viability of the funded services sector.

The information collected and compiled during the process is fed back to programs as part of the commissioning cycle. This enables us to determine ways in which we may better support the sector, and identify ways to improve and innovate at the program and sector levels.

From an individual service provider’s perspective, annual accountability confirms the organisation is performing as expected, and that it continues to have the required capacity and capability to deliver services as agreed in its contract with us. This is valuable for verifying governance and financial management practices.

From a sector perspective, the annual accountability process assures DCJ and our service partners that the service sector continues to be capable of delivering better outcomes for our clients.

How annual accountability assists us to meet our obligations

Service providers are asked to submit comprehensive information to us in their annual accountability reporting. This enables the department to meet its own accountabilities: to Government, regulators and, ultimately, the people of NSW.

The DCJ Partnerships directorate, which has responsibility for human service contract management, is subject to:

• internal audit by the DCJ Governance and Audit Branch
• reporting requirements of the NSW Ombudsman, the NSW Police Force and the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC)
• annual review of financial and performance management systems by the NSW Auditor-General to confirm we're managing risks to the service system.

The annual accountability process, and the information collected, plays a significant role in us being able to meet these obligations.

These requirements are supplemented with any reporting requirements for the applicable financial year.

Note that state and local government agencies, universities and other bodies established under NSW legislation aren’t required to report corporate-level accountability.

On this page

• General requirements
• Due date for submissions
• How we deal with late submissions
• Reporting corporate-level accountability
• Addressing focus areas
• Reporting contract-level accountability
• Reporting indirect contract administration costs
• Reporting government grants and subsidies
• Support and assistance

General requirements

Under your contract with DCJ, you’re accountable for the funding you receive and the services you deliver to individuals, families and communities of NSW on our behalf.

For you, as a contracted service provider, annual accountability is a mandatory process of submitting information to us so that we can verify you have:

• used funds as agreed in your contract with us, and can account for that usage
• complied with key elements of the contract
• achieved the performance requirements agreed in the contract.

We also use the process to ensure you have relevant practices in place for stable and uninterrupted delivery of services.

There are separate requirements for reporting annual accountability at the corporate and contract levels.

Corporate-level accountability requires you to report financial health for the whole of your organisation, declare compliance with your ongoing responsibilities and contractual obligations, and address requirements for any annual accountability focus areas required for the financial year.

Contract-level accountability requires you to report income and expenditure against the funding your organisation received from DCJ, declare unspent funds, and certify you met the financial responsibilities and contractual obligations for the reported financial year.

At the end of each financial year, we notify you of any additional requirements for reporting annual accountability for that financial year.

Due date for submissions

You must submit your annual corporate- and contract-level accountability documents for a financial year via the Contracting Portal on or before 31 October following the end of that financial year.

If your financial year-end date isn’t 30 June, submit your corporate-level accountability within four months of your financial year-end.

However, all contract-level accountability must align to the DCJ financial year-end date of 30 June.

The following table provides an example of the accountability due dates based on different financial year-end dates.

Any exceptions to the due date are included in the reporting requirements for the applicable financial year.

How we deal with late submissions

It’s important that we receive your financial reports by the due date, as agreed in the contract with us.

If your annual accountability submission hasn’t been lodged by 31 October, we may issue a notice of breach to your organisation. In addition, the contract gives us the option to suspend and/or reduce your funding payments until we receive your submission. Your organisation may also be placed on a formal improvement plan, including conditions that may affect your future engagement with us.

Reporting corporate-level accountability

You’re required to report corporate-level accountability using the form allocated in the Contracting Portal to submit details about your organisation and its finances.

Only one corporate-level accountability submission is required, regardless of the number of separate contracts you held during the applicable financial year.

As part of your reporting, you’re required to submit signed financial statements for your organisation. The financial statements don’t require endorsement at your annual general meeting before you submit them to us.

We may request other documents from time to time.

You’re also required to fill in, sign and submit the Service Provider Declaration for Corporate-level Accountability. The declaration is a certified statement confirming that your organisation:

• complies with its ongoing responsibilities and contractual obligations (subject to any noted exceptions and reasons for them)
• is a going concern and has the ability to meet its debts
• has submitted all information and documents requested by us.

On the declaration form, you’re able to list any exceptions to your compliance with the requirements and the reasons for those exceptions. The declaration form must be signed by authorised or delegated signatories of your organisation.

The declaration form may change from year to year, and is issued as part of the reporting requirements for the applicable financial year.

Any additional requirements for corporate-level accountability are included in the reporting requirements for the applicable financial year.

Addressing focus areas

As part of our commitment to continual improvement of services, we may target particular practices with focus areas as part of your corporate-level accountability.

The focus areas are used to satisfy us that your organisation has relevant policies and/or practices in place to minimise the risk of instability to, or interruption of services. They address your governance, financial management and/or service delivery practices.

We determine the focus areas, and whether to include them for a financial year, based on:

• legislative or regulatory requirements that DCJ and/or its service providers must comply with
• significant systemic issues arising during the year
• common issues identified from previous annual accountability assessments
• complaints received about service providers or their staff.

Requirements for any focus areas are explained in the reporting requirements for the applicable financial year. If focus areas are included, you’re required to:

• respond to questions in relation to the focus areas
• submit the documents requested, such as policies and procedures, if any were requested.

Reporting contract-level accountability

You’re required to report contract-level accountability separately for each contract you held during the applicable financial year.

Using the form allocated in the Contracting Portal, you must report income and expenditure against the funding your organisation received from DCJ, and declare unspent funds.

As part of your reporting, you’re required to submit a detailed income and expenditure statement for the contract, certified by two (where applicable) authorised signatories. The income and expenditure statement doesn’t require endorsement at your annual general meeting before you submit it to us.

Under the contract with DCJ, your organisation is required to keep proper accounts and records of your usage of DCJ funds, and to keep them separately from your other accounts and records. Your accounts and records are expected to support the figures you submit in the detailed income and expenditure statement, and you report on the form in the Contracting Portal. DCJ may, at its discretion, require you to provide an itemised breakdown of any income and expenditure item.

There are special requirements for reporting indirect administration costs for a contract.

You’re also required to fill in, sign and submit the Annual Accountability Certification for Contract-level Accountability. This certifies that your organisation met the financial responsibilities and contractual obligations for the reported financial year, including that you:

• provided services as agreed in the contract
• collected and provided the data and information required
• have returned previous year unspent funds, if required.

On the certification form, you’re able to list any exceptions to your compliance with the requirements and the reasons for those exceptions. The certification form must be signed by authorised or delegated signatories of your organisation.

The certification form may change from year to year, and is issued as part of the reporting requirements for the applicable financial year.

If your contract with us is for funding of $25,000 (excl GST) or less, you’re only required to submit the completed Annual Accountability Certification for Contract-level Accountability.

Any additional requirements for contract-level accountability are included in the reporting requirements for the applicable financial year.

Reporting indirect contract administration costs

What are ‘indirect contract administration costs’?

Indirect contract administration costs are all indirect costs incurred by you in support of delivering the services agreed in the contract with DCJ. These costs include all administrative, fixed and variable overhead costs.

You’re required to report indirect contract administration costs as expenses, separately for each contract you hold with DCJ, as part of your contract-level accountability.

Expenses that can be included as indirect contract administration costs

You may include all expenses that aren’t directly connected to providing the services to DCJ clients as agreed in the contract.

Typical examples of indirect contract administration costs are:

• fees paid to another organisation to perform administrative services such as payroll
• rent, shared office space costs and rates
• utility costs for telephone, water, electricity and gas
• licensing fees
• insurance
• other corporate overheads such as accounting, auditing, technology, human resources, marketing, legal, security and motor vehicle costs.

Download the Income & Expenditure Statement template for a more comprehensive list of examples.

We understand that an indirect cost for one organisation may be a direct cost for another. That’s your organisation’s indirect contract administration costs must be justifiable and reasonable based on providing the services agreed in the contract.

For expenses to be included as indirect contract administration costs, they must:

• have been incurred and/or paid by your organisation during the applicable annual accountability reporting period
• be reasonable, based on the DCJ services agreed in the contract
• be relevant to providing the services agreed in the contract
• be justifiable, based on your accounts and records
• not include any direct costs; this means don’t include operating expenses incurred by your organisation that can be directly attributed to delivering the services and achieving the contract outcomes
• not have been included as part of any other expense reported for the same contract
• be apportioned correctly when applied to multiple contracts
• not have been included in the expenses of any other contract (with DCJ or another funding agency) you’ve reported for the same annual accountability reporting period.

DCJ may, at its discretion, require further information and justification from your organisation to determine the costs reported.

Determining the amount to report

Indirect contract administration costs are a legitimate and necessary business expense, and can vary from organisation to organisation, depending on:

• the size of the organisation
• the complexity of running a program
• the impact in the community, where having more impact may relate to higher administration costs and vice versa.

So, there’s no one-size-fits-all standard ratio or percentage that can be used to measure the reasonableness of the costs associated with managing a contract.

However, your organisation must be able to justify the amount reported.

We understand that it may be difficult to track indirect costs in organisations that hold multiple contracts with DCJ and/or other government agencies.

For this reason, DCJ will accept a certain percentage of the contract funding amount as a means of apportioning indirect contract administration costs for different contracts.

However, the percentage used must be justifiable to actual indirect costs incurred while providing the services agreed in each contract. This percentage of the funding must:

• be reported as a value in the Indirect contract administration costs field of the contract-level accountability form in the Contracting Portal
• be reflected in the accompanying income and expenditure statement
• not form part of any other expenditure reported for the same contract or another contract.

If using this method, we ask that your organisation regularly reviews the percentage it applies, to ensure it reflects actual costs incurred and it doesn’t result in large variances between the actual and percentage allocated costs.

Reporting government grants and subsidies

If your organisation received a grant payment from DCJ, or another Commonwealth or NSW Government subsidy, we expect you to report these in your financial statements as a corporate-level subsidy or as required by other funding agencies.

Grants from DCJ have their own reporting and acquittal requirements, as specified in the grant agreement.

You’re not required to acquit these funds as part of your annual accountability reporting, nor include nor report them as income for any of your of DCJ contracts.

If DCJ made any special payments to your organisation, the reporting requirements for the applicable financial year explain how to acquit those funds.

Support and assistance

If you have any questions about annual accountability, or require support or assistance with any aspect of completing your organisation’s reporting requirements, contact your DCJ contract manager.

If you require assistance accessing or using the Contracting Portal, contact the Systems, Funding and Cards team.

These reporting requirements for the 2022–2023 financial year supplement your reporting requirements, and the resources are provided to assist you prepare your submissions.

On this page

• Due date for submissions
• Focus areas
• Special note for Permanency Support Program (PSP) and Out-of-Home Care (OOHC) Contracted Care providers
• Reporting special COVID-19 payments from DCJ
• Retaining or returning unspent funds
• Resources to assist with your submission
• Do you have any questions?

Due date for submissions

You must submit your annual corporate- and contract-level accountability documents via the Contracting Portal on or before 31 October 2023.

Refer to your reporting requirements for further information about the due date and how we deal with late submissions.

Focus areas for corporate-level accountability

There are no focus areas for 2022–2023.

Refer to your reporting requirements for further information about focus areas.

Special note for Permanency Support Program (PSP) and Out-of-Home Care (OOHC) Contracted Care providers

Funded contracts

In 2022–2023, PSP and OOHC Contracted Care service providers may have held one or more contracts:

• a PSP contract from 1 July 2022 to 30 September 2022
• a PSP contract from 1 October 2022 to 30 June 2023.
• a PSP Family Preservation contract from 1 October 2022 to 30 June 2023.
• an OOHC Residential Care contract from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023.

For each of these contracts you held, you must complete separate contract-level accountability submissions, with separate income and expenditure (I&E) statements for each.

Note that for contracts which expired in September 2022, you must return any unspent funds to DCJ. Refer to the unspent funds requirements for 2022–2023 for further information.

Supplementary payments

In 2022–2023, PSP and OOHC Contracted Care service providers may have received supplementary payments for:

• Child Transition Payment
• Alternative Care Arrangement (ACA) or individual placement arrangement (IPA)
• Significant Disability Payment
• COVID-19 Emergency Action Payment.

In the I&E statement for each contract-level accountability submission, you must include a separate line item for each of the supplementary payment types DCJ has paid to you. The I&E line items must include the cumulative total of all monthly and/or quarterly upfront and/or reconciled payments you received.

Reporting special COVID-19 payments from DCJ

If your organisation received a special payment from DCJ through an existing contract to assist with your response to COVID-19 in the 2022–2023 financial year, you must report the funds as income for the applicable DCJ contract. The contract-level form in the Contracting Portal, includes questions covering special COVID-19 payments made by DCJ in:

• 2022–2023; in particular:
  • whether you received a payment
  • broadly what your organisation spent it on
  • any unspent amount as at 30 June 2023
• previous financial years; in particular:
  • whether you received a payment and had an unspent amount as at 30 June 2023
  • broadly what your organisation spent the remainder on
  • any unspent amount as at 30 June 2023.

If your organisation received a special grant payment from DCJ (separate from the contract), or another Commonwealth or NSW government subsidy to assist with your response to COVID-19 or for any other purpose, you don’t have to report the funds as income for any of your DCJ contracts. You report these as a corporate-level subsidy in your financial statements.

Refer to your reporting requirements for further information about reporting government grants and subsidies.

Retaining or returning unspent funds

Refer to the unspent funds requirements for 2022–2023.

Resources to assist with your submission

Do you have any questions?

Take a look at the frequently asked questions.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for, contact your DCJ contract manager who may be able to assist or follow up with DCJ’s annual accountability team. How to find out who your DCJ contract manager is.

These requirements for the 2022–2023 financial year supplement the DCJ unspent funds requirements.

On this page

• Exceptions to the unspent funds requirements
• Applying for consent to retain and use unspent funds

Exceptions to the unspent funds requirements

Your organisation may retain unspent funds if:

• the amount is $500 (excl GST) or less, or
• the contract is for any of the following programs:
  • Aboriginal Homelessness Sector Growth Project
  • Community Legal Centre – Domestic & Family Violence
  • Commonwealth National Partnership Agreement Funding, where funded by the Commonwealth
  • Family Connect and Support
  • Family Outreach and Child Adolescent Service (FOCAS) 2022–2023
  • Opportunity Pathways – Social Impact Investment
  • Out-of-Home Care Contracted Care, see special note below
  • Permanency Support Program, see special note below
  • Rent Choice Start Safely Trial
  • Sector Coordinator
  • Staying Home Leaving Violence
  • Supporting Families into Early Childhood Education
  • Targeted Earlier Intervention, subject to special condition below
  • Thriving Families
  • Women’s Disaster Recovery Mobile Service
  • Youth Frontiers Program, or
• your organisation received a special COVID payment in 2023, and was given an extension to carry forward spending, or
• the funding was paid in advance for use in following financial years, or
• the contract states you may retain unspent funds for future use with the program, or
• your organisation received other written approval from DCJ to retain unspent funds for future use with the program.

If your organisation’s situation doesn’t meet any of the exceptions listed, and you have a compelling reason to retain and use the unspent funds for a specific purpose, you must apply for DCJ’s consent. Refer to the instructions for applying for consent to retain and use unspent funds.

Special note for Permanency Support Program (PSP) and Out-of-Home Care (OOHC) Contracted Care providers

DCJ has completed the 2020–2021 reconciliation of PSP payments made to service providers contracted to deliver Foster Care and Intensive Therapeutic Care (ITC) and agreed this with all providers.

By June 2023, DCJ aims to complete a reconciliation of PSP payments for the 2021–2022 financial year and Q1 of 2022–2023.

By October 2023, service providers will be sent the reconciliation for Q2–Q4 2022–2023.

As specified in the payment provisions of the PSP Program Level Agreement (clauses 5.3–5.5), the advance quarterly payment following the reconciliation will be adjusted to account for funds owed to or to be recovered from you.

If you’ve identified unspent funds and DCJ has verified them during the reconciliation, you may retain these unspent funds for future use with the program, as agreed in the contract. If reconciliation results in a discrepancy in the payment, DCJ will contact you to resolve.

Note that COVID-19 Emergency Action Payments made to PSP and OOHC Contracted Care providers are subject to monthly reconciliation.

Special condition for Targeted Earlier Intervention programs

While you have DCJ’s consent to retain unspent funds, you must obtain our consent prior to committing the funds, for how and when you will use them for the program services. Refer to the instructions for applying for consent to retain and use unspent funds.

Applying for consent to retain and use unspent funds

You must obtain consent from DCJ if you have a compelling reason to retain and use unspent funds for a specific purpose. Don’t commit or spend the funds until you’ve received written notification from us.

To make an application, you must fill in and submit an Application for consent to retain and use funds unspent in 2022–2023, as part of your annual accountability reporting. Note that DCJ will only accept applications made using the DCJ form.

In the application you must:

• state the reason the funds were not spent
• explain how your planned re-allocation and use of the funds will meet the core objectives of the program
• describe the expected benefits of the re-allocation of the unspent funds, and how this would be in addition to the normal contract outcome for which annual funding is provided
• provide a detailed plan, budget and timeframes for the benefits to be achieved.

Upload your application and any supporting documents to the Contracting Portal as part of the applicable contract-level accountability submission. We won’t consider applications lodged via email.

If you submit an application for consent to retain unspent funds, your DCJ contract manager will contact you to discuss it.

Your DCJ contract manager considers whether to support the application and makes a recommendation to the program manager, who makes the final decision.

Once a decision is made, we’ll notify you in writing.

Your annual accountability submission is a key input to the process of reviewing and assessing your performance.

On this page

• Reviewing your submissions
• Conducting annual accountability assessments
  • Our approach to assessing accountability
  • How we assess the criteria
  • Initiating actions in response to any concerns

Reviewing your submissions

When we receive your submission, our priority is to verify you’ve answered all questions on the forms and uploaded all the required documents.

Then we perform a preliminary review and crosscheck of the financial information to ensure it’s been reported as required and to address any inconsistencies as soon as possible.

In addition, we organise recovery of unspent funds, if required.

We’ll contact you if:

• there’s incomplete or missing information on a form
• documents haven’t been either filled in correctly, signed or uploaded
• there’s incomplete or inconsistent financial information; for example, figures typed in the contract-level accountability form don’t agree with figures in the income and expenditure statement you submitted
• we need to make arrangements with you to recover unspent funds.

Conducting annual accountability assessments

Our approach to assessing accountability

We conduct annual accountability assessments at the corporate and contract levels.

The assessments are designed to build a snapshot of your performance over the previous 12 months, and analyse your reported accountability.

We’ve defined a set of criteria as the basis for the assessments. Each criterion addresses an aspect of governance, financial management or service delivery. The criteria may change from year to year.

You’re required to submit financial statements as part of corporate-level accountability. Financial statements give us an indication of your organisation’s general financial health. We use this information when we assess the corporate-level financial management criteria. The ongoing viability of your organisation is important to us because we want to maintain stable service delivery.

If focus areas are included for the reported financial year, we review any material submitted, if it was requested by us. Our interest in this material is to verify its currency and to satisfy us that relevant practices are in place to minimise the risk of instability to, or interruption of services. It isn’t DCJ’s role to endorse this material or the practices described in it.

You’re required to submit an income and expenditure statement as part of contract-level accountability. We use the income and expenditure statement when we assess the contract-level financial management criteria. This is to verify that funding was spent as agreed in the contract.

We’ll contact you if there are any financial discrepancies or other matters to be clarified.

Note that under our contract with you, we can audit or review your accounts at any time, even though we’ve accepted the financial reporting of your annual accountability submission.

How we assess the criteria

For each assessment criterion, we determine whether we have concerns about your organisation which may affect its ability to deliver services to our clients.

To do this, we:

• review and analyse the information you submitted for your annual accountability reporting, including any annual accountability focus areas
• consider your achievements, performance, issue and risk management during the previous 12 months
• use our general knowledge of your organisation and your service delivery practices, as well as consider communication and engagement with you over the previous 12 months.

If concerns are identified, we rate their severity. We state the reason for the severity rating given and, if necessary, provide evidence to support that reasoning. We may contact you with questions or to request further information before we apply a rating.

Significant concerns related to the financial management and focus area criteria (if included) are escalated within DCJ for further analysis and, if necessary, a detailed review or investigation.

Based on the outcome of the assessments, we:

• determine whether any issues and/or risks must be registered for management and monitoring
• review and, if necessary, adjust your corporate and/or contract-level indicators
• determine whether a formal Performance Improvement Plan is required to manage any issues.

Initiating actions in response to any concerns

We notify you when your annual accountability assessments have been completed.

If any concerns were identified during the assessments, we ask to meet with you to discuss them and plan a course of action to address them.

This meeting ensures transparency of the accountability process and its outcome, and provides the opportunity to:

• clarify the situation
• establish your awareness of any issues and/or risks we identified
• discuss any measures already being taken to address these issues and risks
• work collaboratively with you to resolve matters.

Together, we determine whether you:

• can resolve an issue or treat a risk using your own resources or by changing your practices
• require the support of your DCJ contract manager, who may direct you to resources that may assist you.

1. How long will it take to complete all the required details in the Contracting Portal?
2. How do I find out who my DCJ contract manager is?
3. How and where can we add authorised signatories who are able to sign off on DCJ documentation?
4. Why can’t service providers depreciate assets purchased using DCJ funds? If an asset isn't sold but eventually outlives its usefulness, can we include it in the depreciation schedule?
5. Is there a set amount of funding that can be used for the purchase of assets?
6. What are the requirements for reporting administrative, fixed and variable overhead costs?
7. How do we report government subsidies?
8. Can we roll over unspent COVID-19 payments, or do we need approval from the department?
9. The reporting requirements and resources for 2022-2023 has a special note for Permanency Support Program (PSP) providers that payments for alternative care arrangements (ACA) must have a separate line in the income and expenditure statement. Does this also apply to individual placement arrangements (IPA) and Complex Needs Payments?
10. We have accrued income based on what we believe the Permanency Support Program (PSP) clients should be paid by DCJ. Since the reconciliation hasn’t been completed by DCJ, this figure may change once the reconciliation is done. Should we include these? Also, in relation to Complex Needs Payments, we haven’t received confirmation from DCJ whether you agree with our figures, so we won't be able to accrue this income. Are they to be included at item 7 on the contract-level form?
11. How do we report alternative care arrangement (ACA) reimbursements?
12. For Permanency Support Program (PSP) providers, does the prepopulated figure for income received from DCJ include payments for alternative care arrangement (ACA), individual placement arrangements (IPA) and Complex Needs Payments?
13. What do we do if our organisation doesn’t comply with one of the paragraphs in either the service provider declaration for corporate-level accountability or the annual accountability certification for contract-level accountability?

1. How long will it take to complete all the required details in the Contracting Portal?

It should take less than an hour, depending on complexity and your familiarity with the process.

You’ll be able to answer many questions in the Contracting Portal by referring to:

• your income and expenditure statement, for questions on the contract-level form, and
• your full organisation financial statements, for questions on the corporate-level form.

So have those documents on hand when entering your responses.

Also, the questions don’t vary very much from year to year, so this makes it easier for you to complete the forms.

Use the explanation of reporting forms for annual accountability 2022–2023 to assist with your responses to the questions.

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2. How do I find out who my DCJ contract manager is?

Your DCJ contract manager for the contract is listed in two places in the Contracting Portal.

When you navigate to a Program Level Agreement (PLA) record, the contract manager is listed on the top on the screen with the rest on the PLA details. You'll also find the contract manager's details on the bottom of the Acquittals details page, under the form.

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3. How and where can we add authorised signatories who are able to sign off on DCJ documentation?

You can provide the details of your board or committee members, as well as key executives, in the Contracting Portal.

1. Add the individuals as ‘users’.
2. In their job title, indicate the position that they hold on the governance body or that they are an authorised signatory.
3. You don’t need to change their status to ‘active’ nor do you need to give them a user type if they won’t be required to access the portal.

You can get further instructions on adding a user from the portal Help menu.

Find out more about authorised signatories

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4. Why can’t service providers depreciate assets purchased using DCJ funds? If an asset isn't sold but eventually outlives its usefulness, can we include it in the depreciation schedule?

You may depreciate assets in your organisation's accounts, as required by the accounting standards.

However, don’t report asset depreciation in either the income and expenditure statements for DCJ contracts or in the form on the Contracting Portal.

This is because:

1. Any asset purchased with DCJ funds has already been claimed outright as an expense against the contract funding in the financial year of purchase.
2. To claim depreciation on the same asset in subsequent years is to claim an additional deduction for an expense already claimed.

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5. Is there a set amount of funding that can be used for the purchase of assets?

No.

However, we recommend your organisation performs a cost-benefit analysis to justify the amount allocated to an asset's purchase, so that it doesn’t affect delivery on the contracted services. Please refer to your contract and also contact your DCJ contract manager to ensure reasonable steps have been taken prior to purchase of any assets.

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6. What are the requirements for reporting administrative, fixed and variable overhead costs?

These indirect contract administration costs may have been incurred by you in support of delivering the services agreed in the contract with DCJ.

Your reporting requirements lists expenses that may be included as indirect contract administration costs.

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7. How do we report government subsidies?

Report government subsidies as a corporate-level subsidy in your financial statements.

This is fully explained in reporting government grants and subsidies in your reporting requirements.

However, if your organisation received a special payment from DCJ to assist with your response to COVID-19, and it wasn’t a special grant with its own contract, you must report the funds as income for the applicable DCJ contracts.

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8. Can we roll over unspent COVID-19 payments, or do we need approval from the department?

You can only roll over unspent COVID-19 payments if we gave your organisation an extension to carry forward spending.

Refer to the unspent funds requirements for 2022–2023 for more information.

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9. The reporting requirements and resources for 2022-2023 has a special note for Permanency Support Program (PSP) providers that payments for alternative care arrangements (ACA) must have a separate line in the income and expenditure statement. Does this also apply to individual placement arrangements (IPA) and Complex Needs Payments?

Yes. If you’ve received any payments outside of our contracting payments system (for example, on an invoice basis) for ACA, IPA and Complex Needs Payments, include a separate line item in your income and expenditure statement.

In addition, report such payments at item 7 on the contract-level form (other contract-related income).

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10. We have accrued income based on what we believe the Permanency Support Program (PSP) clients should be paid by DCJ. Since the reconciliation hasn’t been completed by DCJ, this figure may change once the reconciliation is done. Should we include these? Also, in relation to Complex Needs Payments, we haven’t received confirmation from DCJ whether you agree with our figures, so we won't be able to accrue this income. Are they to be included at item 7 on the contract-level form?

Yes. Include Complex Needs Payments at item 7. And include a separate line item in the income and expenditure statement.

We understand there are cases of unreconciled amounts. In these cases, use the accounting standards revenue recognition criteria to accrue such income, and report accordingly at the contract level based on your reconciliations. If required, you may seek further advice from your external accountant or auditor.

We also understand that the accrued amount may differ to actual income received at a later stage, and subsequent adjustment to accrual may be required.

For the PSP contract that ended 30 September 2022, DCJ will perform an unspent funds reconciliation for the full PSP contract term following completion of the payment reconciliations for your contract. This will ensure:

• late payments made after payment reconciliations are recognised or allocated in the correct financial year or the financial year it related to
• accuracy of the unspent funds that are carried forward to following financial year (where applicable)
• unspent funds reported at end of PSP contract term (30 September 2022) are reasonably accurate.

The unspent funds reconciliation will be performed by the DCJ Prudential Oversight team, with assistance from the service providers and relevant contract manager. Details of the reconciliation including outcomes will be shared with you prior to finalisation.

Subject to payment reconciliation deadlines, we plan to finalise all PSP unspent funds reconciliation by no later than 31 October 2023. We’ll commence the unspent funds reconciliation as soon as we have complete reconciled payment and accountability data for the full term of the PSP contract.

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11. How do we report alternative care arrangement (ACA) reimbursements?

Include payments for ACA at item 7 on the contract-level form (other contract-related income). And include a separate line item in the income and expenditure statement.

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12. For Permanency Support Program (PSP) providers, does the prepopulated figure for income received from DCJ include payments for alternative care arrangement (ACA), individual placement arrangements (IPA) and Complex Needs Payments?

No. Payments outside of our contracting payments system (for example, on an invoice basis) for ACA, IPA and Complex Needs Payments aren’t included in the prepopulated field at item 1 on the contract-level form.

Report such payments at item 7 on the contract-level form (other contract-related income). And include a separate line item in your income and expenditure statement.

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13. What do we do if our organisation doesn’t comply with one of the paragraphs in either the service provider declaration for corporate-level accountability or the annual accountability certification for contract-level accountability?

The declaration and certification forms both include a table where you can list any exceptions to meeting the requirements, and the reasons for the exceptions.

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If you have any questions about annual accountability, or require support or assistance with any aspect of reporting your organisation’s annual accountability, contact your DCJ contract manager.

If you require assistance accessing or using the Contracting Portal, contact the Systems, Funding and Cards team.