The Federal Government has announced plans to restructure the Defence Department to improve transparency and accountability.

 

The changes form part of the Federal Government’s response to a review by Dr Rufus Black, which found accountability measures within the department were under stress and were causing systemic failures.

 

The Black review found that the Defence Department was burdened with an over-abundance of committees. The Federal Government announced that it will dramatically reduce the number of functioning committees, appointing two senior bureaucrats to implement the restructuring.

 

The department will also create two new associate secretary roles – a chief operating officer to oversee coordination of policies and an associate secretary to scrutinise how Defence projects are delivered.