About $1.7 billion from the public purse has been spent on regional grants programs in eight years, but the Victorian government agency in charge can't show what good it's done.
Auditor-General Andrew Greaves on Thursday released a scathing report on the running of Regional Development Victoria, attacking its lack of transparency, poor data, incomplete lists of grants awarded and overstated impact on jobs.
"Having administered more than $1 billion in allocated funds since 2011, RDV still cannot reliably determine whether their grants have improved economic or social outcomes directly or indirectly, or whether any benefits have been sustained beyond the immediate injection of funds into a community," the report reads.
Regional Development Victoria was first told after a 2015 audit to improve its practices.
The report noted some improvements were made, but there was still a long way to go and there is a "high risk" that the next audit in 2021 will find a similar result.
The audit found even the agency's own evaluations through multiple consultants could not systematically evaluate the schemes because of inconsistencies between objectives and implementation, lack of targets and measures, poor data quality and trouble attributing change in a social and economic sense.
Regional Development Victoria took a long time to process grant applications and could not show how much was being spent on administration, according to the report.
The audit also found the agency incorrectly reports the number of jobs it expects to create.
In one example, $1.5 million was contributed to a $55 million project - a 2.7 per cent share - but Regional Development Victoria subsequently attributed all 357 project jobs to its grant.
"This means RDV is overstating (the fund's) impact," the report says.
The report makes seven recommendations, including keeping a complete list of all awarded grants and using social and economic data to understand areas of greatest need.
The Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions which oversees Regional Development Victoria accepted the recommendations and has undertaken to implement them by December 31.
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