Improving Our Financial Position
Overview
Throughout 2007–08, we continued to strengthen our financial management practices in a challenging year that saw us successfully implement a range of legislative reforms whilst continuing to meet our compliance and reporting obligations.
External challenges faced by ComSuper included changes to scheme demographics and revenue projections, and increased Government scrutiny on our external budgets and costings, particularly with the number of new legislative measures introduced. We consulted with our stakeholders in relation to these challenges and the impact on our revenue base and fee structure.
ComSuper has also actively managed and implemented new regulatory changes in relation to the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 (FMA Act), along with changes in accounting standards issued by the Australian Accounting Standards Board requiring more detailed and complex financial statements reporting.
Internal challenges faced during 2007–08 were driven by:
- an increased demand by business areas for tangible support in contracting and procurement functions
- increased need for the development of financial costings to support new funding negotiations and pricing agreement discussions
- financial management systems requiring manual intervention and reporting
- a tight labour market in the industry, placing pressure on the replacement of key staff resources.
We have consistently met our ongoing financial management obligations including the accurate and timely preparation of annual financial statements, timely monthly reporting to Departments of Finance and Deregulation and Defence on our management of administered appropriations and the daily management of our unit pricing activities conducted on behalf
of the Boards of Trustees.
We have also drawn on the significant progress made during 2006–07 in developing costing and strategic analysis tools to ensure effective financial management reporting within ComSuper.
