Appendix A: Implementation plan for proposed recommendations

Date



Table 14: Report Recommendations: Proposed Implementation Plan

Recommendation

Implementation arrangements

Responsibility

Implementation timeframe

  1. The Minister and ASIC to implement a more effective strategic long term oversight function, underpinned by a mutual commitment to a more pro-active regular ongoing dialogue. As steps to achieving this:
    • The Minister to provide an Annual Ministerial Statement in Parliament, in conjunction with tabling of ASIC's Annual Report on the degree to which ASIC meets the expectations of the SoE and is performing in the achievement of its mandate.
    • The Government and ASIC to enhance the SoE and SoI to clearly and regularly communicate expectations (to be reviewed annually), and to ensure mutual understanding and support ASIC in managing stakeholder expectations.
  • Minister and Chairperson to conduct regular ongoing discussions throughout the year
  • Minister annual statement to Parliament to coincide with tabling of Annual Report in Parliament
  • Government to review/ update SoE annually

Minister; Treasury, ASIC Chairperson

  • Commence immediately188
  1. ASIC to continue to refine the performance reporting framework, including consolidating performance reporting (to ensure consistency between reporting frameworks), aligning internal performance metrics, improving the use of performance narrative, and identifying opportunities for more sophisticated analytics, particularly in relation to outcomes measures
  • Incorporate further refined and updated performance indicators into the 2016 Corporate Plan and report against them in the Annual Report
  • Review annually to coincide with Corporate Plan preparation

ASIC

  • Commence immediately

Internal governance

  1. ASIC to realign internal governance arrangements by elevating the current Commission role to that of a full time non-executive function (not an external board), with a commensurate strategic and accountability focus free from executive line management responsibilities.
  • Publicly state intention to realign role of the Commission
  • Clarify role and responsibilities of Commissioners and Board committees and associated delegations under the new governance structure

ASIC

  • Commence immediately
  1. ASIC to establish a new role of Head of Office (HoO), with delegated responsibility and accountability for executive line management functions.
  • Publicly state intention to establish new HoO role
  • Document role and responsibilities of the HoO and related delegations from the Chairperson
  • Undertake best practice recruitment process and appoint HoO

ASIC

  • Commence immediately; to be formalised by end 2016 (incl. appointment of new HoO)
  1. SELs to be delegated executive line management functions, reporting to the HoO.
  • Determine role, responsibilities and delegations of the SELs overseeing business lines and clusters (if current organisation structure is maintained, see recommendation 12)
  • Appoint SELs to oversee business lines and clusters

ASIC

  • Commence immediately; new delegations to be formalised by end 2016
  1. Government to revisit this structure in three years, to review the size of the Commission and whether the roles of the Commissioners need to continue to be full-time.
  • Undertake one-off review of new governance structure, with external expertise involvement and ASIC Chairperson input

Government (drawing on independent external expertise as necessary)

ASIC Chairperson input

  • Undertake within 3 years

Leadership talent

  1. The Government to apply a contemporary best practice merit based recruitment process to ensure transparent and robust appointments of the Chairperson, Deputy Chairperson and other Commissioners.
  • Develop a documented contemporary best practice recruitment process for Commissioner selection
  • Identify an international executive search firm as needed to undertake search for position
  • Establish a high level Government panel as needed to identify short-listed candidates
  • Apply recruitment process upon appointment of a Commissioner (as required)

Minister, Treasury

  • Commence immediately documentation of process189
  • Apply recruitment process (as required)
  1. ASIC to implement a periodic forward looking skills gap assessment of the Commission to identify and inform future recruitment needs.
  • Develop process for conducting review
  • Identify external consultants to assist Chairperson in conducting review
  • Review to be conducted biennially to align with Corporate Plan process

ASIC Chairperson (drawing on external expertise)

  • Commence immediately; with completion to align with Corporate Plan process
  1. ASIC to implement a Commission effectiveness review to assess performance on an ongoing basis.
  • Identify external advisers to assist Chairperson in conducting review
  • Review to be conducted annually to align with Corporate Plan process and as input to annual effectiveness review of ASIC by the Minister

ASIC Chairperson (drawing on external expertise)

  • Commence immediately with completion to align with Corporate Plan process and Minister's annual effectiveness review
  1. ASIC to develop a formal individual performance review process for the Commissioners, led by the Chairperson.
  • Conduct formal performance review annually; Initially pilot review process until formal review cycle can commence in 2016-2017

ASIC Chairperson

  • Commence pilot immediately
  1. The Minister to assess the effectiveness and performance of the Commission on an annual basis
  • Identify external consultants to assist Minister in conducting Chairperson review (if required)
  • Performance review conducted annually to coincide with tabling of Annual Report and ASIC effectiveness statement in Parliament

Minister

  • Commence immediate with completion by July each year190

Culture

  1. ASIC to initiate a review of its organisational culture and as part of that review assess the merit of implementing Google's Project Oxygen team based assessment program to inform development of Commission strategy for high performance team culture.
  • Conduct review of ASIC's organisational culture with external expertise as required; re-evaluate within 2 years

ASIC Commission

  • Commence immediately; to be completed by end of July 2016

Strategy development

  1. ASIC to substantially improve the intended approach for delivery of the Corporate Plan in both the public document itself and the underlying Business Unit Plans. This should include greater specification of intended actions as well as timing, resourcing and organisational implications.
  • Adjust strategy-setting process to ensure Business Unit Plans focus on detailing delivery plans in the strategy process
  • Evaluate outcomes annually as part of strategy-setting process

ASIC

  • Commence immediately; to be completed in time for internal 2016-17 budget cycle
  1. ASIC to improve the selection of performance indicators to ensure that the measures associated with the Key Activities for each Focus Area are: (i) reflective of the activities and their desired outcomes; and (ii) aligned to the internal performance indicators captured in the relevant Business Unit Plans, and to ASIC's enterprise-wide performance indicators.
  • Evaluate performance indicators annually as part of strategy-setting process, including international benchmarking and external expertise as required; Incorporate updated performance indicators into the annual Corporate Plan to report against in Annual Report
  • External consultation as required

ASIC

  • Commence immediately; to align with Corporate plan development
  1. ASIC to review and introduce a more outcomes focused and dynamic use of advisory panels to ensure these forums input more directly into strategy development, and introduce a broader public consultation element into the strategy setting process.
  • Develop and implement a structured process to incorporate external panel views into the risk identification process; reviewed annually as part of the strategy-setting process
  • Ensure alignment with recommendation 30
  • External consultation as required

ASIC

  • Commence immediately, with completion by July 2016
  1. ASIC to further clarify and emphasise its expectations and risk tolerances (what the regulator will and will not be doing) and actively advertise and promote the strategy broadly (see Chapter 2 for further recommendations related to the SoI).
  • Identify limitations of ASIC's activities and incorporate explicitly in the Corporate Plan, Annual Report and SoI; Review annually as part of strategy-setting process
  • Promote and communicate the Corporate Plan extensively through multiple channels and forms of engagement (on-going requirement)

ASIC

  • Implement immediately; limitations to be incorporated in 2016 Corporate Plan

Strategic communication

  1. ASIC to ensure the strategic framework used in developing the Corporate Plan is used consistently throughout the communications.
  • Conduct a review to assess the extent of variability and inconsistency in language across communication documents
  • Review annually as part of strategy-setting and communication of the strategy processes

ASIC

  • Commence immediately; to be incorporated in strategy communication documents
  1. ASIC to develop a comprehensive communications strategy that places greater emphasis on communication of the organisation's strategic priorities.
  • Develop a communications plan to promote and explain ASIC's strategic objectives; annual process to coincide with Corporate Plan
  • Develop the key principles of communication that underpin the communications strategy; review annually as part of strategy-setting process

ASIC

  • Commence immediately; to be completed prior to the release of the 2016 Corporate Plan
  1. ASIC to rebalance its public and internal communications about its role as an enforcement agency.
  • Utilise communication channels to best promote ASIC's role to internal and external stakeholders; reviewed annually as part of strategy-setting process
  • Leadership to actively promote all the regulatory tools ASIC uses to execute its objectives (on-going requirement)

ASIC

  • Commence immediately

Resource allocation

  1. ASIC to ensure the top-down allocation of resources are deployed across the organisation based on the strategic priorities.
  • Identify areas where resourcing changes and reallocations are warranted
  • Review annually against identified strategic priorities

ASIC

  • Commence immediately where possible; review resource allocation in 2016 planning

Workforce capabilities and management

  1. ASIC to increase the scale and diversity of the secondment and exchange program.
  • Identify skill-gaps across ASIC (extend work to date with external consultants; to be conducted as part of the strategy-setting process in future years)
  • Develop comprehensive and ongoing secondment and exchange program opportunities to assist in closing skill-gap
  • Form partnership programs with relevant industry companies, law firms, analytics companies and other (domestic and international) regulators
  • Set targets for the number of staff participating in these programs at all levels
  • Review steps annually as part of strategy-setting process
  • External consultation as required

ASIC

  • Commence immediately
  1. ASIC to improve workforce planning to include a more forward looking, strategy informed, top-down view (progressing and internalising work to date).
  • Expand the current workforce planning process (being conducted with external consultants) across the organisation (including supporting functions)
  • Determine internal owners of this process
  • Conduct an annual internal review of process

ASIC

  • Commence immediately; to complete organisation wide assessment by June 2016
  1. ASIC to refresh its career value proposition to help attract and retain staff and support future secondment, by clearly articulating and tailoring messaging, and identifying strategies to deliver on this message (that is, to 'make it real').
  • Launch an HR project to refresh the career value proposition including with stakeholder and external expertise involvement as required; review career value proposition every 2-3 years
  • Identify internal change requirements to realise that proposition, for example improvements to L&D programs, updates to role descriptions, and execute
  • External consultation as required

ASIC

  • Commence immediately; project to be completed by June 2016
  1. ASIC to refresh its career value proposition to help attract and retain staff and support future secondment, by clearly articulating and tailoring messaging, and identifying strategies to delive
    r on this message (that is, to 'make it real').
  • Launch an HR project to refresh the career value proposition including with stakeholder and external expertise involvement as required; review career value proposition every 2-3 years
  • Identify internal change requirements to realise that proposition, for example improvements to L&D programs, updates to role descriptions, and execute
  • External consultation as required

ASIC

  • Commence immediately; project to be completed by June 2016
  1. Government to remove ASIC from the PSA as a matter of priority, to support more effective recruitment and retention strategies.
  • Conduct one-off impact assessment
  • Consult on legal implications of removing ASIC from the PSA
  • Begin transition process

Government with ASIC input

  • Commence immediately; to be removed from the PSA Act by end of 2016191

Organisation structure

  1. ASIC to launch a pilot project to assess the suitability of dedicated project based teams to improve flexibility across units and reduce the impact of silos.
  • Launch one-off pilot to test the ability of cross cluster temporary project teams to better respond to strategic priority areas
  • Review success of the pilot by early 2017 and assess need for creation of specific project-team function in organisation structure and resourcing allocation

ASIC

  • Commence pilot 'project-team' structure immediately; to be completed by end of 2016
  1. ASIC to implement a regular review of internal business processes and systems, supported by improvements in MIS to drive operational efficiency and reduce the cost burden on regulated entities.
  • Detail how the process will be conducted (including scope, specific focus areas and data requirements) and to be reviewed by Audit Committee
  • Identify resources to conduct the review (such as internal or external)
  • Review of internal processes to occur every 2 years including through internal audit drawing on external expertise as required

ASIC

  • Commence immediately; Initial assessment to be completed by June 2016

Regulatory tool kit

  1. ASIC to enhance enforcement effectiveness through developing a more targeted risk based approach to litigation for cases that are strategically important, and prosecutes through more focused pleadings and strategic appointment of senior counsel.
  • Develop strategic litigation process (including setting targets); to be reviewed annually by the Enforcement Committee
  • Identify gaps to meet defined targets, and establish approach to reduce gap; to be reviewed annually by the Enforcement Committee
  • Incorporate key messages from litigation outcomes into communications through alignment with the strategic communications strategy (on-going requirement)

ASIC

  • Commence immediately
  1. ASIC to proactively develop opportunities to enhance the use of co-regulation for selected groups of the regulated population where this will deliver superior regulatory outcomes, including through strengthened licensing and registration regimes
  • Assess opportunities and develop plans for co-regulation in conjunction with relevant industry groups
  • Provide time for consultation with external stakeholders
  • Conduct initial assessment of industry associations to assess suitability for partnering in co-regulation models including with stakeholder consultation and external expertise input as required
  • External consultation as required

ASIC

  • Commence immediately. Opportunities to be developed over time, and regularly re-assessed (includes ~3 month consultation period)

Stakeholder management

  1. ASIC to develop and implement a formal tiered stakeholder relationship model based on entity nature, scope, risk and complexity.
  • Identify and group stakeholders based on entity nature/scope/risk/complexity; review stakeholder grouping annually based on risk concentrations at that point in time
  • Provide time for consultation with external stakeholders
  • Realign stakeholder coverage and engagement strategies in accordance with the new model (including recruitment if required); review efficacy of the new model in the next ASIC stakeholder survey
  • Public documentation and communication of new stakeholder model
  • External consultation as required

ASIC

  • Commence immediately; to be implemented by Q2 2017 (includes ~3 month consultation period)
  1. ASIC to recalibrate advisory panel setup to ensure more systematic value add for example, through a larger pool of experts that can be called upon to advise on various issues as needed based on issue-specific needs and expertise gaps, coupled with regular performance assessment and enhanced internal responsibility to act on recommendations.
  • Conduct review of external panel structure and charters
  • Evaluate similar structures and processes used by other regulators on how best to leverage external panels
  • Review effectiveness of panels and their setup every 2 years
  • Align with recommendation 15

ASIC

  • Commence review of the external panels immediately; to be conducted by June 2016
  • Implement proposed changes by end of 2016
  1. ASIC to execute its FAST 2 transformation program, 'future-proofing' design and expanding scope as required.
  • Leverage external experts to ensure ASIC is delivering a system that is moving towards 'best practice'
  • Expand existing investment programs to ensure system design is 'future proofed' (where required) with external expertise as required
  • Conduct review of each step as part of annual IT strategy development

ASIC

  • Commence immediately; expand existing investment programs (where required); timelines to be adjusted based on original business case

Data management

  1. ASIC to launch new programs of work to close additional identified gaps for example, to enhance the ability to measure and report for MIS.
  • Initiate review to identify additional infrastructure gaps and whether additional programs of work are required
  • For new programs of work, develop a project wide stakeholder analysis which assesses both change impact and risks
  • Leverage external experts on development and implementation of the program
  • Implement new programs (as required)
  • Conduct review of each step as part of annual IT strategy development
  • MIS improvement program and efficacy to be reviewed by Audit Committee

ASIC

  • Commence immediately
  • Implement new programs (as required); timelines based on business plan
  1. ASIC to invest in the development and application of big data 'reg-tech' analytics, through identifying specific applica
    tions for regulatory data analytics and building required staff skills/capabilities.
  • Conduct scan of peer regulators to identify how big data and analytics is being used elsewhere
  • Conduct a gap assessment and develop plan for closing these gaps
  • Implement new analytics platforms to assist regulatory response
  • Conduct review of each step as part of annual IT strategy development
  • External consultation as required

ASIC

  • Commence immediately; identify short-list of solutions by June 2016
  • Implement new programs (as required); timelines based on business plan
  1. ASIC, in conjunction with the Council of Financial Regulators (CFR), to develop a forward work program to design and implement open data policies and data analytic collaboration.
  • Form CFR working group to investigate open data sharing
  • Develop and implement solutions (including open and other data policies and analytics) to improve data sharing and present to the relevant Minister
  • Implement policies
  • External consultation as required

ASIC, CFA, Treasury

  • Commence immediately; to be finalised within one year

Figure 32: Governance and Leadership — proposed implementation timelines

Figure 32: Governance and Leadership - proposed implementation timelines

Figure 33: Strategy — proposed implementation timelines

Figure 33: Strategy — proposed implementation timelines

Figure 34: Delivery — proposed implementation timelines (1 of 2)

Figure 34: Delivery — proposed implementation timelines

Figure 35: Delivery — proposed implementation timelines (2 of 2)

Figure 35: Delivery — proposed implementation timelines


188 Implementation timeframe based on Government decisions on the Review being made in the first half of 2016. If timing of Government decisions is different, then the implementation timetable would need to be amended accordingly.

189 Implementation timeframe based on Government decisions on the Review being made in the first half of 2016. If timing of Government decisions is different, then the implementation timetable would need to be amended accordingly.

190 Implementation timeframe based on Government decisions on the Review being made in the first half of 2016. If timing of Government decisions is different, then the implementation timetable would need to be amended accordingly.

191 Implementation timeframe based on Government decisions on the Review being made in the first half of 2016. If timing of Government decisions is different, then the implementation timetable would need to be amended accordingly.