In her latest column, the ACNC Commissioner, Susan Pascoe comments on the red tape reduction process. She notes that the Government has moved the responsibility for deregulation to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PMC). While PM&C has the overarching responsibility, all departments will be expected to have deregulation units and to audit and quantify the regulatory requirements they impose on all organisations.
One way to achieve this reduction is ensuring a report once, use often approach to the use of data across government. The onus is then on the government to share data, not require organisations to continually provide the same information. For charities, the Commonwealth Grant Guidelines mandate this approach to the use of their data – once the ACNC has your core information, other government agencies must get it from the ACNC and not seek it from you.
The Annual information statements are part of the report once, use often approach. Once the ACNC has your information, they will provide it to other government agencies, and also back to you electronically (through pre-populating your subsequent Annual Information Statements, so that you don’t have to repeat it.)
For those charities that interact with government, especially those with multiple contracts or grants, this will dramatically reduce red tape. For those who only interact with the ACNC this will also reduce administrative requirements, especially in South Australia which has aligned with the ACNC. For other states and territories the ACNC has offered access to the report once, use often core charity data and have initiated dialogue with them to minimise duplication and harmonise legislation.
The full column can be read at:
http://www.acnc.gov.au/ACNC/Pblctns/Media_centre/Com_Col/ACNC/Comms/Com_Col/CC_20131007.aspx