Secretary's introduction

Welcome to the Australian Department of Family and Community Services' TBL report for 2002–03.

This is the first report of its kind for FaCS and, indeed, a first for any Australian Government department. It is an important first step in our long-term goal of best practice TBL performance and reporting on the department's internal operations.

The report represents an acknowledgment that organisations are not just concerned with financial issues. Their operations have social, environmental and broader economic impacts as well.

The decision to produce this TBL report was based on two main factors.

FaCS, in its role as Secretariat to the Prime Minister's Community Business Partnership, is one of a number of organisations working with the Partnership to develop a national TBL reporting framework for Australian business. In this context, it makes good sense for FaCS to set an example and lead the way in the public sector.

At the same time, FaCS recognises the value of TBL reporting to government agencies. For staff, it means seeing real evidence that they are part of a socially, environmentally and economically aware organisation that adheres to open and transparent reporting. For many, initiatives like the Greenhouse Challenge and the department's commitments to helping staff achieve a work-life balance and reducing consumption and waste make FaCS a more attractive place to work.

This report uses social and environmental indicators and reporting methods suggested in A guide to reporting against social indicators currently being developed by FaCS and A guide to reporting against environmental indicators developed by the Department of Environment and Heritage. These two guides draw from the 2002 Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines.* The economic indicators used in this report are taken directly from the GRI guidelines.

In many ways reporting against the core indicators in these guides was a big challenge for FaCS. In some areas, this year's report does not include measurements. There are obvious gaps. In the coming year FaCS will work hard to fill these gaps and to improve our performance. We will also produce future TBL reports to communicate our progress in these areas. To this end this report makes a number of commitments and establishes several benchmarks for performance against targets in future years.

To show our commitment to the open and transparent nature of TBL reporting, we have invited the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) to verify facts and figures contained within the report. The opinion gained from this verification process has highlighted a number of areas throughout the department that would benefit from more rigorous reporting mechanisms. This has allowed us to view these areas in a new light, and is a crucial learning step in the TBL process.

I am sure that TBL reporting, meeting the targets that go with it, and integrating this into our decision-making processes will deliver tangible and measurable benefits to FaCS, its staff and the communities in which they live.

(signed)

Mark Sullivan

Secretary

Department of Family and Community Services

26 September 2003

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