Sustainability Report 2006/07Our governance procedures
It is Melbourne Water’s policy to adopt appropriate corporate governance practices and regularly review them to ensure that we are up to date with best practice.
Initiatives to improve Board and management processes include continued development of the Board Extranet so that Board members can have fast and convenient access to all Board documents and Melbourne Water information. The Extranet also makes electronic Board and Committee papers available to leadership team members.
Melbourne Water’s internal auditor, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, completed the third year of its three-year assignment to assist the Board in assessing its performance. A number of areas for possible improvements were identified by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu including:
- Strategy direction setting and understanding the impact of Government policy
- Seeking opportunities for Melbourne Water to gain more benefit from strategy sessions
- Improvement of the depth of understanding of risk management
- Re-consideration of the charter and required frequency of meetings of the Environment and Public Health Committee
- An increase in preparedness of the Board to challenge the status quo.
Current initiatives to improve governance arrangements include:
- Ongoing monitoring and improvement of governance arrangements where alliance agreements have been entered into, including the Sugarloaf Pipeline alliance and the four program alliances
- Continuing work to improve Melbourne Water’s legislative compliance systems.