Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 4:11:20 to 4:16:10
Questions regarding the $420,000 independent evaluation of AERO, including FOI denials, the decision not to release the report publicly, and the implementation of its findings.
Topics: Education, Integrity, Government spending
Speakers: Senator Penny Allman-Payne, Dr Jennifer Donovan, Unknown Speaker
>> um thanks very much chair there. Um, sorry, I'll just start my clock so that I don't go over like I did last time. Um, hi Miss Donovan. Um, have some questions around the independent performance evaluation of AROW that was commissioned by the minister uh in mid2025 and which we understand has gone to state education ministers. Um, are you aware that a number of people have tried to access that report under FOI and been denied access?
I'm aware that there has been an FOI lodged. Yes.
>> Um did Arrow have any input to the education ministers on whether that report should be released or not?
>> No. None at all.
>> Okay. Um much of Arrow's work is around evidence-based um research. Uh and certainly the government has um I guess a regime in the better and fairer schools agreements of holding schools and teachers accountable. Um can you understand why um education academics, teachers and school leaders are very concerned that the report and evaluation of Arrow has not been made public given that it's it's a means of showing the evidence for the work that you do and the accountability of Arrow.
Uh, Senator, the evidence for the work that we do is transparently available already on our website. The minister's commissioned the report. It's the minister's decision whether or not to release it and they've decided not to.
>> Um, in terms of how that report or that review was conducted, um, who from Arrow was involved uh, in being engaged with the reviewers for that review?
Uh the reviewers sought meetings with uh several members of my executive team and our board. Uh but and we provided documentation to them as requested.
>> Okay. Did they do an audit of the operations of Arrow like what sorts of documents were requested?
>> There are about 80 documents requested but uh as that goes to the content of their report I can't give you detail about that. I would not describe what they did as an audit. No.
have there been any been any actions um that Arrow is now implementing that flow from the findings of that report?
>> There were several findings uh that um were about possible actions that ERO could take which ERA was already undertaking. for example, um an annual report. We're not required to produce an annual report as a ministerally owned company. We report to the ministers on a quarterly basis about our progress and impact. Um but we had decided uh or our board had suggested that an annual report might be a good opportunity for people to annually get um a compilation of the work that we've done. And so we had already begun producing annual reports for example.
>> Is that the only action that's flowed from that report? >> No, there $20,000.
>> Yes. Several other actions that we have undertaken that were synchronous with things that our board had already made suggestions to us about. Another one is um uh publishing our engagement plan who who we engage with and how we go about engagement and consultation around the work that we do.
>> Is there anything that you were not already doing that you are now doing as a consequence of the findings of that review?
>> Uh I don't think so.
you need to take that on notice?
>> I can take it on notice. Uh the findings of the review, not all of them were about actions for Arrow's attention.
I guess the reason I'm I'm really keen to know is because the report cost $420,000. Um AROS cost $65 million since its inception. I think it would be concerning if we have a report a that we can't get the findings of um and secondly if there's nothing that flows from that that that doesn't seem like a good return on investment to me. Um is there a work plan for Arrow at the