Victorian Catholic schools fully support calls from the Commonwealth Parliament’s Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit for public reporting of the funding models used by school systems in Australia, Jim Miles, Acting Executive Director of the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Ltd (CECV), has said.

‘The CECV agrees that this information is important to provide assurance to government and to the community that school funding is being allocated appropriately,’ Mr Miles said.

‘The CECV is highly transparent with our internal funding models and decision-making processes, over and above our statutory requirements.

‘For several years, we have publicly released a detailed report with this information on the CECV website. This was acknowledged by the Australian National Audit Office in 2017 when it noted the CECV was one of the few non-government school systems nationally that made details of its funding arrangements available online.’

Mr Miles noted there remains significant room for improvement in school reporting and accountability requirements.

‘First, we need to ensure that all reporting and accountability requirements are sector-neutral. Government schools should be required to meet the same requirements as non-government schools.

‘Second, more school information needs to be reported on the MySchool website. This includes each school’s data on students with disability under the so-called ‘Nationally Consistent Collection of Data’ (NCCD) methodology, as well as each school’s enrolments of international students.

‘Third, opportunities to reduce red tape on schools need to be explored, including the removal of illogical duplication in state and federal government compliance.

‘There is also a need to make sure the cost to schools of administering the NCCD remains reasonable.’

Further information: Christian Kerr 0402 977 352

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