Q.5: What actions should be taken to restore accountability to government?

Government, government agencies and government bodies at all level must be fully open, totally honest and completely transparent. Consultation must be an active two way process.

Our government needs to stop wasting everyone's time with regards to the rental crisis.. Do the math and play it fair.

What happens to the people in between? These people being those that don't have enough income to cover the 37% rental pricing in the private market, yet at the same time not being worthy of government or community housing?! just for them to deem their affordable rent 30% more then that of estate agents.

It just gives many false hope and insecurities when facing rejection of not being approved for a property, and what should be a feasible lifestyle!

So more…

Government should set and periodically web publish meaningful statistically measurable KPIs for each government department, business and statutory authority - short/medium/long term targets versus performance - many government departments, businesses and statutory authorities' annual reports often provide little meaningful data. Provision data should not be limited to financial KPIs, but should include - OHS injury and workers' compensation claim frequency rates, customer complaints trends, enforcement action trends such number of prosecutions, infringement notices, fine revenue, number of regulatory officials per head of population by region, number of proactive regulation compliance audits of businesses, etc etc

Each government agency should be required to meet comprehensive performance standards that are set by the executive level of government and mandated by legislation. Agencies should be audited each year by an independent body to determine compliance - results should be web published. i.e. mandatory management codes around - environmental care, finance, OH&S, customer service, quality assurance, training and competence of staff, corruption prevention, maintenance of facilities and equipment, annual reporting, KPI establishment and performance reporting etc, etc. The executive arm of government should pay attention to the excellent work conducted by the NSW Audit Office and NSW Obudsman Office when setting these performance standards - much of their work seems to have beeen given scant regard by the Public Service.

Senior Executive contracts should be made public, and the review of the agreements carried out via public process, answerable to the Governor, not a Minister.

Ministers set the terms of the performance agreements, select the people to fill the roles, and control the funding given to the Departments to achieve the goals set in the plan. That is sufficient control for the Minister to have, without also making the judgement about whether the set goals have been achieved.

If accountability is required from Government, these agreements must be review by an independent umpire.

Weed out the money wasters like Resitech - who by the way sub contract out to others and keep the tidy sum themselves to run there business (And they are state govt). All this contracting and subcontracting, committees and sub committes wastes time and money. Write a NSW Land and Business Plan setting out what you will achieve in 12 months in each LGA allocate a budget and do it. Then report to the people of NSW on what was achieved, what wasnt and why not! Anyone in business or in charge of a business has to report to shareholders or get sacked - so too should each department head or business manager.

Dont write out glossy, pie in the sky ideals, write a list of actions an operational plan - allocate the jobs, allocate the budget and stop the politics and red tape and DO it!

Once again, I can only comment on Corrective Services. Why does it take a private provider such as SERCO or GEO to have a National manager and managers of the centres without all of the Assistant Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners and General Managers sitting around the Henry Dean Building doing nothing because they are either useless or there is nowhere to put them. The cost of keeping these people is astronomical. Corrective Services could survive easily enough with just the Commissioner and General Mangers of the centres. This will restore accountability by demonstrating that the "Mate" system of jobs is dead and buried.

Forget the shared corporate services idea! NSW state government publish many documents that talk about 'whole of government" strategies etc - but with shared corporate services we see only fragmentation and many govt agencies focused only on their 'patch' - there is little evidence of a concrete result anywhere. Great ideas, nobody taking any real action to see policy abided. I for one, after reading a particular strategy, expected a high standard of advice and assistance when in need, only to find it was all pie-in-the-sky - to be told that 'with all the amalgamations of govt departments the reality is we can't really do what govt policy says" ... well, I give up and will keep battling on by myself. The public needs to see govt means what it says. What a disappointment. I am these days ashamed to say that I am a public servant, where once I spoke long and hard in favour of the public sector - no more do I feel that way, instead I find I am suspicious of every word.

Councils should be accountable to the RATEPAYERS on what is spent and how. So much money is wasted and badly invested. I totally agree with Bigfeller ... Government agencies and bodies should be fully open, honest and transparent.

Most council regions have problems .... over development, conjested transport, too many jobless, too much of a willingness to be on benefits, wanton destruction of public and private property .. (graffiti), rental crisis, to name a few.

More consultation between councils, government and the population would go some way to giving the general public the opportunity to have a say.

Take away the right of a local government councillor to also be a member of the State Parliament. That is detrimental to the rights of all residents.

While I like the government’s pledge to make government information more accessible, I think we the people need to be wary of the old lawyer’s trick – disclose the important paragraph, but bury it in 7000 pages of useless information, so nobody can find it.

I trust the O’Farrell government much more than the last one we had, but all the same I think we need to insure that all major points are disclosed OBVIOUSLY and CLEARLY, and that consealing them within useless filler is treated just the same as if it hadn’t been disclosed at all. Perhaps the O’Farrell government more…

Could we change what government is? Servants to the individual communities who self govern?

Imagine if Community Reps met together to fairly share and distribute their pooled resources. Where there is a struggle, the care of all Australians steps in, this is always seen to rise up in time of disasters, it causes all Australians to reach out to share the resources in a fashion that will help build these areas. It re-connects people with the reality of where people are at in this country of ours. The government becomes the employees of the communities that perform the duties that result from these meetings. They do not determine the direction of the resources, not declare themselves worthy of luxurious wages and perks.

When the local member for Port Macquarie finally makes representations to Ministers on behalf of a local citizen, the Premier needs to know whether or not his Ministers are responding within a reasonable time.

4-5 months without an acknowledgement is redolent of the previous Government and cannot be accepted from its replacement.

What are the standards for Ministerial correspondence and which Ministers are performing?

This Government's ministers are in hiding. They are neither visible, credible or accountable and I would put it down to poor leadership.

Talk of consulting with the community - crap! Community forums are window dressing to the community till after you make the decisions, and then waste money reversing the decisions.

There is a wealth of experience in the community that is not being listened to.

This government appears to be run on the principals of Alan Jones and Ray Hadley - you should all be embarrassed.

I would be happy to discuss any of these issues at length with the Premier or appropriate Minister.