Report Once, Use Often:

Charity Passport guide for government agencies

Date released:

V1.3 September 2017 v1.2: July 2016 v1.1: August 2014 v1: June 2014

Classification:

Unclassified

ACNC Contact:

Manager Red Tape Reduction RedTapeReduction@acnc.gov.au

Contents Summary .................................................................................................................................... 3

Background ................................................................................................................................. 4

The ACNC ............................................................................................................................... 4

Report once, use often ............................................................................................................ 4

What is the Charity Passport? ..................................................................................................... 5

The Process ............................................................................................................................ 5

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) .................................................................................................... 7

What does the Charity Passport contain? ................................................................................... 7

Overview of available data ...................................................................................................... 7

Data (and Register) Integrity ................................................................................................... 9

Limitations of dataset ............................................................................................................ 11

Accessing and using the Charity Passport ................................................................................ 12

Which agencies? ................................................................................................................... 12

How to access it .................................................................................................................... 13

Limitations on Use ................................................................................................................. 14

Reducing Red Tape through the Charity Passport .................................................................... 14

When to use the Charity Passport ......................................................................................... 14

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 19

APPENDIX 1: CHARITY PASSPORT DATA ............................................................................. 20

FILE DEFINITIONS ............................................................................................................... 20

APPENDIX 2: TECHNICAL USER GUIDE ................................................................................ 21

Accessing the Charity Passport via an FTP Client ................................................................. 21

Accessing the Charity Passport via Web browser ................................................................. 23

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Summary

The Charity Passport has the potential to significantly reduce the burden on charities of duplicative reporting to government agencies.

The Charity Passport contains the publicly available corporate, financial and activity information for charities registered with the ACNC. The information includes: core charity information, the Annual Information Statement, charity documents, registration information, charitable purpose, responsible persons, and ACNC enforcement outcomes.

The ‘report once, use often’ approach, which is applied by the ACNC through the Charity Passport, is consistent with recommendations issued by the Productivity Commission, the National Commission of Audit, the Australian National Audit Office, the Treasury, and the Department of Finance. The approach is strongly supported by the charities sector.

For Commonwealth government agencies, the Charity Passport could be a valuable part of their contributions to the Government’s deregulation agenda. Where an agency uses the Charity Passport, the reduction of burden on charities may be costed and included in agency deregulation budgets and reports to help the Government reach its annual red tape reduction target.

The ACNC can provide the Charity Passport to any Australian government agency (Commonwealth, state or territory) in order to reduce red tape for charities. Government agencies can gain access to the Charity Passport by becoming a Charity Passport Partner: request access at RedTapeReduction@acnc.gov.au or by phone at (02) 6216 8908.

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Background

The ACNC

What is the ACNC’s role?

The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) is the independent national regulator of charities. The ACNC registers entities (incorporated and unincorporated) that fall within the legal definition of a charity as set out in the Charities Act 2013 (Cth). Not all ‘not-for-profit’ organisations are eligible to be charities and registration with the ACNC is voluntary. However, an entity that is entitled to be registered as a charity cannot access Commonwealth charity tax concessions or other benefits unless it is first registered with the ACNC.

The ACNC’s statutory functions include establishing and maintaining a public online register of charities – see acnc.gov.au/findacharity.

One of the ACNC’s statutory objects is to promote the reduction of unnecessary regulatory obligations on the sector. The Charity Passport has been developed in consultation with the sector and government agencies as a tool to ensure that data collected and displayed on the ACNC Register is reported once by charities and used often by government agencies.

Report once, use often

Numerous government inquiries conducted prior to the establishment of the ACNC found that Australian charities faced complex, onerous and duplicative regulatory and reporting arrangements. Much of the burden on charities is imposed through duplicative reporting to multiple government agencies under grant and other funding agreements.

The 2010 Productivity Commission report on the ‘Contribution of the Not-for-Profit Sector’ recommended adoption of the principle of ‘report once, use often’ to reduce duplication across government. The principle is that information should be reported once by organisations to a centralised regulator and then shared with other government agencies to be used often to meet reporting requirements.

The report once, use often approach is also fully consistent with the Australian Government’s deregulation agenda and with the 2017 Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines1:

• Deregulation agenda: where an agency collects information from the ACNC that it previously would have collected from charities directly, there is a decrease in the red tape imposed by the agency on these charities. This saving may be included in the agency’s deregulation costings and reports.

• Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines: under the 2017 Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines (CGRGs), Commonwealth officials must have regard to information collected and made available by regulators and should not seek this information from grant applicants and recipients. Also, officials should not require a financial acquittal where an organisation has provided an audited financial statement (eg. to the ACNC), unless the grant is higher risk. The Resource Management Guidance2

1 Department of Finance, Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines, July 2014, Canberra.

2 Department of Finance, Resource Management Guide No. 412: Australian Government Grants – Briefing and Reporting, July 2014, Canberra.

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supporting the CGRGs goes beyond this to recommend that no financial acquittal should be required for organisations registered with a regulator unless the grant is higher risk.

The principle of ‘report once, use often’ is implemented by the ACNC through the Charity Passport.

What is the Charity Passport?

The ACNC’s Charity Passport is the information collected by the ACNC from registered charities packaged in an electronic format for sharing with authorised government agencies. It is designed to reduce the number of times charities report the same information to different government agencies, in line with the development of the 'report once, use often' reporting framework.

The Process

The ACNC collects information from all registered charities in Australia, including corporate, financial and activity information. Most of the information collected is made publicly available on the online ACNC Register: acnc.gov.au/findacharity.

Anyone – including the general public and officers of government agencies – may freely access the register and search for charities. Charities have a listing on the register containing information and documents about the charity.

For government agencies dealing with multiple charities, the Charity Passport is a more advanced solution for data exchange. The dataset of charity information is made available through the Charity Passport in a format suitable for transfer to these agencies. Figure 1 provides an overview of ACNC information flows and the Charity Passport process.

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The Charity Passport uses a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) repository.

Figure 1: Charity Passport

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File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard protocol for transferring. Charity Passport files are automatically generated on a weekly basis and stored in the FTP repository.

Data files can be downloaded using either:

• an FTP client (software that facilitates data transfer by linking with the host system); or

• web browser (the user logs in to the website to download the files from a file repository).

IT teams are likely to have an FTP client and may prefer to use this method of data retrieval. Other general users may prefer to simply login to the website and download the required files.

What does the Charity Passport contain?

Overview of available data

The Charity Passport contains the publicly available corporate, financial and activity information about a charity that is held by the ACNC.

Sources

The Charity Passport information comes from the following sources:

• the ACNC Registration form

• Annual Information Statements

• Annual Financial Reports

• Other updates (for example, through the Charity Portal)

Information

The Charity Passport information is provided in seven data files. Most of the information is contained in the ‘Charity information’ file. The Annual Information Statement (AIS) data and links to charity documents (such as governing documents) are in separate files. More detailed historical data is available in the other files should agencies require it. See APPENDIX 1: CHARITY PASSPORT DATA for a link to the data items collected by the ACNC.

Charity Passport Data

File Data

1. Charity information (main data file)

YYYYMMDD_charity_v#.csv (eg. 20140526_charity_v2.csv)

Core charity information, including:

• legal and other name(s)

• ABN

• contact details

• charitable purpose (subtype) (eg.

advancing education, advancing social

or public welfare, advancing health)

• who the charity benefits (eg. children, women, youth)

• size

• operating locations

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• registration status

• reporting status (whether the Annual

Information Statement has been

submitted)

• financial year end

2. Annual Information Statement

YYYYMMDD_2013_ais_v#.csv (eg. 20140526_2013_ais_v2)

Yearly statement confirming core information, and also including:

• activities conducted in the previous

year

• how the charity pursued its purposes in

the previous year

• who the charity helped in the previous

year

• planned changes

• information about resources

(staff/volunteers)

• (voluntary) information about reporting

obligations to the Commonwealth

Government

• basic financial information

3. Charity documents

YYYYMMDD_charity_documents_v#.csv (eg. 20140526_charity_documents_v2)

Links (for each charity) to all documents available on the register:

• governing documents (where lodged)

• financial reports:

voluntary for small charities; required for medium charities (reviewed or audited) and large charities (audited)

4. Registration history

YYYYMMDD_charity_reg_v#.csv (eg. 20140526_charity_reg_v2)

Information on the registration status of charities, current and historical.

5. Charitable purpose (subtype)

YYYYMMDD_charity_subtype_v#.csv (eg. 20140526_charity_subtype_v2.csv

Information on the charitable purpose (charity subtype), current and historical.

6. Responsible persons

YYYYMMDD_charity_responsible_persons_v#.csv (eg. 20140526_charity_responsible_persons_v2.csv)

List of the responsible persons and their position in the charity.

7. Enforcement Outcomes

YYYYMMDD_charity_enforcement_v#.csv (eg. 20140526_charity_enforcement_v2.csv)

Details of any enforcement outcomes (e.g. warnings issued).

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Financial information

The Annual Information Statement includes basic financial information for all charities; and annual financial reports are required to be submitted by medium and large charities (voluntary for small charities).3

Annual Information Statement

The Annual Information Statement includes financial questions. The number of financial data elements required depends on the size of the charity:

• Small: 9

• Medium: 12

• Large: 15

Annual Financial Reports

• Small: voluntary to submit financial reports.

• Medium: required to lodge financial reports that have been audited or reviewed

• Large: required to lodge financial reports that have been audited

Data (and Register) Integrity

The ACNC recognises that the ‘report once, use often’ reporting framework relies on consistent, valid, accurate, complete and timely data for it to be effective. A comprehensive suite of legislative provisions and administrative processes help to ensure the integrity of data held by the ACNC and published on the Register.

Administrative Processes

Through the online Charity Portal, charities are able to quickly and easily make changes to their details. The Charity Portal also includes reminders for charities to provide required information.

Through the ACNC data integrity framework, considerable resources are applied to ensure the currency and accuracy of data.4 This included extensive work to ‘cleanse’ data provided by the Australian Taxation Office (who had not been required to maintain an up-to-date public register of charities). The reporting status of registered charities is included in the Charity Passport dataset.

Legislative Provisions

The following legislative provisions help to ensure the integrity of the information held and published by the ACNC.

ACNC Act – duty to notify

Under s 65-5 of the ACNC Act, registered charities are required to notify the ACNC of matters including:

3 Except for Basic Religious Charities, which are exempt from providing financial information or reports (see page 14).

4 However, the ACNC does not directly verify the accuracy of all the information lodged with the ACNC by registered charities.

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• change to name, address for service, or responsible persons

• change to governing rules

• significant contravention of the Act or governance standards.

ACNC Act – right to withhold certain information

Under s 40-10, the ACNC Commissioner may withhold or remove information from the Register that is inaccurate, likely to cause confusion or is likely to mislead the public. The Commissioner exercises this discretion whenever it is appropriate to do so. This power helps to ensure the accuracy of the data on the Register and so in the Charity Passport.

Privacy Act

The Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) are contained in Schedule 1 to the Privacy Act 1988 and are legally binding on all Australian organisations and Government agencies.

APP 10 – quality of personal information5 imposes two obligations on the ACNC.

• Firstly, the ACNC must take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we collect is accurate, up to date and complete.

• Secondly, the ACNC must take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we use and disclose is, having regard to the purpose for the use or disclosure, accurate, up to date, complete and relevant.

APP 13 – correction of personal information, further protects the integrity of personal information. APP 13 requires the ACNC to take reasonable steps to correct personal information to ensure that, having regard to the purpose for which it is held, it is accurate, up to date, complete, relevant and not misleading.

Availability of information

Source Date Available

Annual Information Statement

Within 6 months of the completion of the charity’s reporting year. A majority of registered charities have a July-June year, most others have a Jan-Dec year, with only a small number having other reporting year ends.

Annual Financial Report

Updates As soon as practicable (no later than 28 days for medium and large charities; no later than 60 days for small charities*) *28 days for notification of significant non-compliance

Registration information The weekly updates of the FTP files will capture newly registered charities.

5 Personal information is defined in section 6 of the Privacy Act 1988 to include information or opinion that can identify or reasonably identify a living individual.

Figure 2: ACNC Annual Reporting Cycle

Limitations of dataset

Publicly available information only

Only information that is publicly available on the ACNC Register is available. If your agency requires non-public information, the ACNC may be able to provide it to you for specific purposes and subject to conditions. Contact the ACNC by email at RedTapeReduction@acnc.gov.au or by phone at (02) 6216 8908.

The non-public information held by the ACNC includes:

• withheld information

• some additional corporate and financial information

• more detailed registration information

Withheld information

The ACNC Commissioner may withhold or remove information from the ACNC Register in certain circumstances prescribed in the ACNC Act (s40-10). These circumstances include that the information:

• is commercially sensitive and could cause harm to the charity or an individual

• is inaccurate, confusing or misleading

• is offensive

• could endanger public safety, or

• is covered by ACNC regulations.

The ACNC may also decide not to publish details of any warnings we have issued to a charity if:

• the information could cause harm

• the charity was not behaving in bad faith, and

• withholding the information does not conflict with our objects under the ACNC Act.

For example, the ACNC may agree to withhold the address or responsible persons' details of a women's refuge. In this case, there is a clear potential risk of harm to clients or staff if that

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information is included in the Register, and no overriding public interest in making that information available to the public.

If you find that a charity’s record is missing from the Charity Passport, please contact the ACNC at RedTapeReduction@acnc.gov.au. We may be able to provide restricted access to you for certain purposes.

Not-for-profit organisations other than registered charities

The ACNC currently only regulates charities that are registered for Commonwealth tax concessions. The ACNC does not hold information about unregistered charities or other types of not-for-profits.

Basic religious charities

A basic religious charity is a registered charity that meets a number of requirements (see Factsheet: Religious charities ). These include, amongst others, having advancement of religion as its sole charitable purpose, restrictions on legal form, not being a deductible gift recipient, and not receiving in excess of $100,000 per year in government grant revenue.

Basic religious charities have to notify the ACNC of certain changes and submit an annual information statement each year, but they are not required to:

• answer the financial questions in the 2014 (or any future) Annual Information Statement regardless of size

• submit annual financial reports regardless of size

• comply with any governance standards.

Accessing and using the Charity Passport

Which agencies?

Under the ACNC’s information sharing laws (Subdivision 150-C of the ACNC Act), the ACNC may disclose information that has already been made lawfully available to the public where the disclosure is for the purposes of the ACNC Act (s 150-50). The Charity Passport specifically furthers the third object of the Act, “to promote the reduction of unnecessary regulatory obligations on the sector”6.

The ACNC is also authorised under s 150-40 to disclose information (including non-public information) to another Australian government agency (Commonwealth, state or territory) where:

• the ACNC is satisfied this would enable or assist the other agency to perform or exercise its functions or powers, and the disclosure is for this purpose; and

• the disclosure is reasonably necessary to promote the objects of the ACNC Act.

6 Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Act 2012, s15-5(c).

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Access to reduce red tape on charities

The ACNC can provide the Charity Passport to any Australian government agency (Commonwealth, state or territory) in order to reduce red tape on charities.

Non-public information will only be provided upon request in specified circumstances and subject to conditions (email RedTapeReduction@acnc.gov.au.

How to access it

A government agency can gain access to the Charity Passport and become a Charity Passport Partner by following the steps below. Multiple government officers may be granted access to the Charity Passport.

1. Request to become a Charity Passport Partner:

• send an email to RedTapeReduction@acnc.gov.au or call (02) 6216 8908 with:

▪ Officer name(s)

▪ Agency

▪ Contact details

▪ Description of the purpose for seeking the information and how it will be used

2. Once approved by the ACNC, each government officer nominated will be issued with an FTP user account

3. The FTP user account will give the officer access to:

• all Charity Passport files in the shared access FTP folder

• support information, including configuration documentation

(See APPENDIX 2: TECHNICAL USER GUIDE)

4. The Charity Passport files will be automatically updated on a weekly basis and date stamped. Old versions will be kept in an archive folder

5. Once downloaded, the data can be filtered and matched according to ABN (contact the ACNC if you would like guidance about matching and filtering datasets)

Further information about the procedure followed by the ACNC in granting access to the Charity Passport is available on the ACNC website: Operational Procedure: Charity Passport Access (FTP).

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Limitations on Use

The transfer of registration data to Charity Passport Partners is subject to the laws that protect the confidentiality of information including the secrecy provisions contained in Part 7-1 of the ACNC Act 2012 and the Privacy Act 1988 and the Freedom of Information Act 1982. These laws protect both the original disclosure of information by the ACNC and the subsequent use and on-disclosure by the Charity Passport Partner.

On-disclosure

Under the ACNC Act, agencies may only on-disclose information obtained through the Charity Passport if:

• the disclosure is for the original purpose or in connection with the original purpose for which the information was provided by the ACNC (s150-60); or

• the information has already been made available to the public (s150-65).

In Phase 1 of the Charity Passport, only publicly available information is provided. Agencies are therefore authorised under the ACNC Act to on-disclose any of the information obtained, subject to other relevant laws.

Privacy Act constraints

Once an agency obtains personal information through the Charity Passport, they will be subject to the APPs, contained in Schedule 1 to the Privacy Act 1988, with regard to that information.

This means agencies will need to consider the APPs when accessing, using, storing and disclosing Charity Passport information that is also personal information. Personal information within the Charity Passport includes information about living persons, such as responsible person details.

For further information on the APPs see: Australian Privacy Principles.

Reducing Red Tape through the Charity Passport

When to use the Charity Passport

There will be a number of opportunities for agencies to use Charity Passport data and documents. This section provides advice about when to do so, bringing together relevant rules and guidance from the Department of Finance and best practice recommendations from the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) and other sources. The focus here is on Commonwealth grants, however the Charity Passport may be used for any reporting in the Commonwealth, states and territories.

Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines

Commonwealth Government (non-corporate) entities must observe the requirements of the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines7 (CGRGs) effective 29 August 2017.

7 Department of Finance, Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines, August 2017, Canberra.

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4.9 An overarching principle of the CGRGs is that accountable authorities and officials work together across government and with the non-government sector when undertaking grants administration. When determining what the acquittal or reporting requirements are, officials must have regard to information collected by Australian Government regulators and available to officials. (mandatory rule)

8.4 Officials should seek to minimise red-tape and duplication. In particular, they should not seek information from grant applicants and/or grant recipients that is collected by other parts of the entity or other Commonwealth entities and is available to them. (better practice guideline)

9.4 Officials should apply the proportionality principle when determining the reporting and acquittal requirements for grants…

• When determining what acquittal or reporting requirements are required, officials should have regard to information collected by Australian Government regulators and available to officials. If an organisation provides an annual audited financial statement, then an audited financial acquittal should not be required, unless the grant is higher risk. (better practice guideline) …

• Officials should not impose obligations on recipients to provide information which is available from other sources, such as regulatory bodies, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, peak bodies or publicly available material. (better practice guideline)

The CGRGs are supported by Department of Finance Resource Management Guides. Resource Management Guide No. 412: Australian Government Grants – Briefing and Reporting8 expands upon the CGRGs in relation to the ‘report once, use often’ principle.

Engaging with charities: the grants process

Application stage

For the application stage of the grants cycle, entities should not require organisations to provide information already available from regulators or other Commonwealth entities.

To maximise the utility of the Charity Passport, application or registration forms should firstly ask whether an organisation has an ABN and/or whether the organisation is registered with the ACNC. For registered charities, information and documents available on the ACNC Register through the Charity Passport should not be required of applicants. Government agencies should obtain such information from the Charity Passport by data-matching according to ABN.9

8 Department of Finance, Resource Management Guide No. 412: Australian Government Grants – Briefing and Reporting, July 2014, Canberra.

9 The Australian Business Register dataset may also be accessed and data-matched using ABN Lookup (http://abr.business.gov.au).

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Risk and proportionality

The reporting burden imposed on grant recipients should be proportionate to the risks associated with the granting activity.10 When assessing the risk of organisations, grant-providing agencies should recognise that the risk profile of registered charities is lowered by regulation by the ACNC. This is consistent with the requirement under CGRG 7.10 to consider “the nature of a particular industry (ie. emerging industries, highly volatile sectors, controversial providers, industry capacity and regulation, etc)”. The ACNC opens the way for increased trust of registered charities. Also, the limited resources of many charities should be considered when determining proportionate reporting requirements.

Australian National Audit Office (ANAO): Implementing Better Practice Grants Administration (December, 2013)

Grant application and assessment

“the key principle of proportionality is relevant in determining the information required of applicants. For example, the extent of financial and other information required to assess

grant applications for low-risk projects by community organisations may be considerably

less than the information required for complex or high‑risk projects submitted by

commercial organisations. In this respect, the proportionality principle is supported by use

of the financial and other information provided to the ACNC.”11

Grant monitoring, evaluation and acquittal

“The profile of the grant recipient and the nature of the granting activity will need to be taken into account when establishing a cost-effective monitoring and evaluation strategy. For example, the limited resources of many non-profit or voluntary bodies can give rise to particular challenges in establishing a monitoring and evaluation regime that provides appropriate oversight of grant funding, but does not involve undue compliance costs for both the agency and grant recipient. In this context, Finance has advised that, when dealing with the non-profit sector in particular, agency staff should apply the ‘report once, use often’

principle when designing reporting requirements.”12

Acquittal stage

Most government officers can see the relevance of obtaining charity information during the grants application process; however, some have concerns about its applicability to acquittals. It is important to address these concerns, as acquittal processes typically impose the greatest burden on charities in receipt of government funds.

The Treasury found in its scoping study for a national charities regulator that:

“The current burden on NFPs caused by the grant acquittal process is high and is taking away from the time, money and resources of many NFPs, particularly smaller NFPs. This burden would be markedly reduced if acquittals reporting were outcomes based and does not include financial reporting or reporting related to organisational governance. The greatest simplification would occur if the acquittals reporting process could be brought into

the regulator’s “report once, use often” framework where possible.”13

10 Para 7.3 Department of Finance, Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines, July 2014, Canberra.

11 Australian National Audit Office, Implementing Better Practice Grants Administration, December 2013, Canberra, p.36.

12 Ibid, p.90.

13 The Treasury, Final Report: Scoping Study for a National Not-for-profit Regulator, April 2011, Canberra, p.50.

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The ACNC promotes the good governance of charities through its regulatory framework and governing documents held by the ACNC are available through the Charity Passport. Financial information and reports are also collected and made available by the ACNC.

Financial Acquittal

The ‘report once, use often’ framework for acquittals is consistent with the CGRGs, Resource Management Guidance, and the ANAO better practice guide14. Under the CGRGs:

“If an organisation provides an annual audited financial statement, then an audited financial

acquittal should not be required, unless the grant is higher risk.”15

The Department of Finance Resource Management Guide No. 412 expands upon this to recommend that:

“11. If an organisation is registered with an Australian Government regulator, then a financial acquittal should not be required, unless the granting activity is higher risk. Officials can still seek a declaration or certification from the recipient that the grant was spent for the purposes specified in the grant agreement, as well as requiring them to identify any underspends. This does not affect the need for recipients to maintain financial and other

records that would enable a review of financial information, if required.”16

This clause recognises the role of regulators in reducing the risk profile of regulated organisations and in promoting and monitoring good governance and financial management. Applying the proportionality principle, the ACNC requires basic financial information from small charities, reviewed or audited financial statements from medium charities, and audited financial statements from large charities. Government agencies can obtain this information from the ACNC through the Charity Passport and should not require financial acquittals from registered charities unless the granting activity is higher risk.

Even for grants with moderate risk profiles, financial reporting need not be duplicated. The Treasury scoping study noted the suggestion from charities that they “should only have to prepare and lodge one report covering all grants received during the year”17. This proposal for one set of accounts for each organisation (a ‘global audit’) was reinforced at the February 2014 ACNC Forum Measuring and Reducing Red Tape in the Not-for-profit Sector:

Recommendation 4.2: “Organisations should be required to provide one set of audited accounts only. Schedules or segment reporting could be utilised to allow acquittals for multiple programs to be discharged from one set of accounts, replacing separate grant/program/agency reporting.”

Financial reporting of this kind will require ongoing negotiation between charities, government agencies, and the ACNC. The ACNC looks forward to working with government agencies and charities to explore these opportunities.

14 Australian National Audit Office, Implementing Better Practice Grants Administration, December 2013, Canberra, pp.36 & 90.

15 Paragraph 9.4, Department of Finance, Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines, July 2014, Canberra.

16 Department of Finance, Resource Management Guide No. 412: Australian Government Grants – Briefing and Reporting, July 2014, Canberra.

17 The Treasury, Final Report: Scoping Study for a National Not-for-profit Regulator, April 2011, Canberra, p.49.

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Performance Acquittal

The effectiveness of a program and its delivery should be assessed through separate outcomes-based acquittal of performance.

National Standard Chart of Accounts (NSCOA)

NSCOA is an agreed list of accounting categories and data dictionary to simplify and improve consistency of financial reporting by not-for-profits (including charities). NSCOA groups accounting information into assets, liabilities, equity, income, cost of goods sold and expenses. The data dictionary helps organisations to appropriately and consistently categorise their financial data. NSCOA is published on the ACNC website: acnc.gov.au/nscoa.

As agreed by the Council of Australian Governments in 201018, all Australian governments (Commonwealth, state and territory) should be in a position to accept grant reporting by not-for-profit organisations in the NSCOA format. However, it is voluntary for NFPs to report in the NSCOA format. This is reflected in the CGRGs:

“For financial reporting by not-for-profit organisations, entities must accept information according to the National Standard Chart of Accounts (NSCOA) accounting categories

where a not-for-profit organisation chooses to use them.”19

The ACNC financial information required in the 2014 and 2016 Annual Information Statement have been mapped to NSCOA. See the AIS Guide for information about how ACNC financial reporting maps to NSCOA.

Summary: using the Charity Passport in the grant process

Applying the general provisions of the CGRGs and RMG 412 to the ACNC and the Charity Passport:

• Commonwealth officials dealing with registered charities in relation to grants must have regard to information collected by the ACNC and available in the Charity Passport (CGRG 4.9)

• Commonwealth officials should not seek information from registered charities that is collected by the ACNC and available in the Charity Passport (CGRG 8.4)

• Commonwealth entities should not require a financial acquittal for charities registered with the ACNC unless the grant is higher risk (RMG 412 para 11)

Government officers should seek to use the Charity Passport and reduce red tape throughout the grants process (see Figure 3).

18 See Council of Australian Governments, Council of Australian Governments Meeting 19 and 20 April 2010, Canberra Communiqué, https://www.coag.gov.au/node/86, accessed June 6 2014; and Standard Chart of Accounts Statement of Intent, https://www.coag.gov.au/node/63, accessed June 6 2014.

19 Footnote 53, Department of Finance, Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines, July 2014, Canberra.

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Figure 3: Reducing red tape throughout the grants process

Conclusion

This guide concludes with a direct appeal to government officers to incorporate the Charity Passport into your efforts to reduce the reporting red tape imposed on charities. The Charity Passport has significant potential to reduce this red tape, particularly duplicative red tape across government. Please ‘use often’ the information contained in the Charity Passport.

Remember, the ACNC can provide the Charity Passport to any Australian government agency (Commonwealth, state or territory) in order to reduce red tape on charities. Unique user accounts can be provided to multiple officers within each Charity Passport Partner agency.

You are warmly encouraged to contact the ACNC Reporting and Red Tape Reduction team to access the Charity Passport or to seek further information about how it can assist your agency and the charity sector:

• email: RedTapeReduction@acnc.gov.au

The ACNC Reporting and Red Tape Reduction team looks forward to hearing from you.

seek applications

•If a registered charity, applicant need not be required to provide data or documents already available in the Charity Passport

•Request ABN and/or ask whether ACNC-registered charity

assess application

•Data-match ABN with Charity Passport (or view individual records on public ACNC Charity Register)

•Obtain any governance or financial documents from Charity Passport.

award grant

•Establish proportionate reporting requirements (the risk profile of registered charities is lowered by ACNC regulation)

•Do not require duplication of reports provided to the ACNC

administer grant

•Proportionate monitoring and evaluation

•Obtain financial information/

•reports through Charity Passport –financial acquittal should not be required (unless grant is higher risk)

•Accept NSCOA financial reporting

APPENDIX 1: CHARITY PASSPORT DATA

FILE DEFINITIONS

Data available is sourced from information provided when a charity or not-for-profit registers with the ACNC and in their annual information statement (AIS).

The information included in the downloadable dataset is:

•Legal name

•Other names (such as trading names)

•Australian Business Number (ABN)

•Contact details

•Date established

•Who the charity helps (beneficiaries)

•Size of the charity (small, medium or large)

•Financial year end

•States, territories or countries where the charity operates

•Charitable purpose(s)

•When the charity was registered with the ACNC

In some situations, charities can apply to have some or all of their information withheld from the Charity Register. If the ACNC has approved for the information to be withheld, it won’t appear on the Charity Register, or in this dataset.

The annual information required will vary from year to year.

To see the relevant AIS dataset please refer to data.gov.au which is updated when new datasets are available.

APPENDIX 2: TECHNICAL USER GUIDE

Accessing the Charity Passport via an FTP Client

The charity passport can be accessed through an FTP client, using the login credentials supplied by the ACNC.

Your organisation’s IT team may already have an FTP client available for you to use or install on your workstation. If a client is not available to you there are many FTP clients available online and some are listed below:

FileZilla https://filezilla-project.org/

WinSCP http://winscp.net/

WS_FTP http://www.wsftple.com/

If you have issues in downloading and installing an FTP client, you will need to contact your organisations IT team to see if this possible.

The examples below use screenshots from FileZilla, however settings will be similar in other FTP software.

1. Open your FTP client and create a new site

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2. Enter the following information in the corresponding fields Host: sftp://ftp.acnc.gov.au Protocol: SFTP – SSH File Transfer Protocol User: [Enter the username provided] Password: [Enter the password provided] NOTE: If you are using a command line interface to access ftp, enter these details into the corresponding ftp command.

3. Click Connect to connect to the Charity Passport folders.

4. You should now be connected . You will now be able to transfer the files you require to your local folders on your computer.

5. Navigate to the local folders on your computer where you would like to transfer the files.

6. Double click on the file(s) you wish to transfer which will start the transfer process. Alternatively, you may select and drag and drop into the destination folder.

7. Your FTP client will indicate when the process is complete.

8. You may now open the files in MS Excel or a text editor. These files could also be loaded into a database if a script were written appropriate to your system.

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Accessing the Charity Passport via Web browser

The Charity Passport files can also be viewed and downloaded via a web browser, using the same login credentials used in the FTP process above.

1. Open your web browser and enter https://ftp.acnc.gov.au into the address bar and press

enter.

2. At the log in screen, enter the username and password provided to you.

3. A prompt will appear with 3 Client Selection options. Select Web Client (default) and

click OK.

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4. You will then enter the Charity Passport Web Client view. You will be presented with the

list of Charity Passport files which can be selected and downloaded, either using the

“Download” button or double clicking the file. The file(s) can be saved to your default

browser download folder, or to an alternative directory of required.

5. You may now open the files in MS Excel or a text editor. These files could also be

loaded into a database if a script were written appropriate to your system.