Lack of Detail

Mr Domm's comment in his letter on human services (Central, May 21) that "the RWA financial details are contained in the annual report available on our website" is both self-evident and provocative.

It is self-evident because they are required to produce an annual report. It is provocative because of what it tells us and what it does not tell us about the RWA's activities.

We defy anyone to work out from the RWA's Annual Reports what they have been doing in human services.

There is no report on the RWA's own Human Services activities. Human Services gets three pages in the RWA's 2006-7 report - a 10 dot point report on the Human Service Plan and a two page list of sponsorships and grants. Only the $200-$300 catering assistance grants are covered in both sections of the report. There is no mention elsewhere in the report of any of the projects covered by the balance $826,016 in grants.

The financial reporting is so general that there is no mention of human services in the income or expenditure statements at all and one can only guess where it might be included.

One of REDWatch's concerns about the RWA's activities continues to be the lack of transparency in the RWA and the RWA Annual Reports are no exception.

This year the RWA website annual report is even locked in a way that prevents searching the document or copying from it.

- GEOFFREY TURNBULL, spokesperson for REDWatch, Darlington

Source: Central 4 June 2008