This presentation provides QAO's insights and advice on asset valuation. It was made to the CPA Australia Congress on 15 October 2015.

This briefing for audit committee chairs covered our strategic audit program and some insights from our reports to parliament on internal control systems (Report 1: 2015-16) and fraud management in local government (Report 19: 2014-15). We also discussed simplification of financial reporting and provided a technical update on asset valuations and residual values.

This session for departments and statutory bodies focussed on how QAO in partnership with the public sector can improve financial reporting. Making financial reports more accessible, readable and meaningful to the users has been on the radar for international accounting standard setters for several years. The 2015 Technical Audit Update covered three interrelated topics: simplification of financial reports, addressing disclosure requirements of new accounting standards and accounting for organisational changes.

This session for the chairs of the Health and Hospitals Services sector covered a technical update including depreciated replacement cost and budgetary reporting. QAO also provided advice on simplifying financial reporting and activity based funding.

In this briefing for audit committee chairs, QAO gave an update on the key matters found in the recent reports to parliament and QAO's future direction including how we are enhancing our client engagement.

This briefing for audit committee chairs provided an overview of the new Strategic Audit Plan and presented the recent client survey results. Advice was provided around the findings on internal controls and QAO's expectations for year-end were discussed.

This session for departments and statutory bodies focussed on how QAO, in partnership with the public sector, can improve financial reporting. The audit update covered three interrelated topics: simplification of financial reports, addressing disclosure requirements of new accounting standards and accounting for organisational changes.

The Financial Accountability Act 2009 and subordinate legislation ensures agencies are held accountable for their performance by requiring them to publicly report results - through annual reports and the Service Delivery Statements. This accountability mechanism helps the community gain a better understanding of value of the government services being delivered to Queenslanders. The performance information can also be used to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government services.

The objective of this audit is to assess whether public sector entities effectively measure, monitor and report the:

• delivery of government services
• achievement of whole of government priorities
• continuous improvement of the public service 

A workshop was held on Thursday 5 December 2013 and Friday 14 February 2014 to research experiences across agencies in monitoring and reporting performance. 

QAO provided the chairs of public sector audit committees with a brief on internal controls (Report 6: 2012-13), the results of a survey with the audit committee chairs and the results of QAO's client survey. The Strategic Audit Plan was also presented.

This briefing for chief financial officers and finance managers offered an overview of QAO's reports to parliament, including a brief from KPMG on a survey of fraud, bribery and corruption in Australia and New Zealand. QAO also provided a technical update.