Performance Audit Report of financial entities - Electricity Roadmap - September 2025

Audit report snapshot

Overall conclusion: Partially effective

The Scheme Financial Vehicle (SFV) and the Financial Trustee (FT) have established foundational governance systems and processes, and these are partially effective. The risk of a major financial failure has been low to date, reflecting the early stage of Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap development and no failures were identified through our audit. However, some key governance functions, including enterprise-wide risk management, contract oversight, and inter-entity coordination, are as yet underdeveloped and will need to be strengthened to keep pace with the growing level of risk.

The core issues

The entities are on a positive trajectory, but further action is required to achieve a future state that includes clear oversight roles, strengthened risk management, and governance and operational systems that protect the financial interests of NSW electricity customers.

It is important that the entities finalise the approach to implementing the agreed operational model between the FT, the SFV and the Consumer Trustee (CT) as soon as practicable. This will ensure processes and systems developed are fit for purpose for the future state and are rolled out in a timely manner. 

Future strengthening of the statutory framework, to address some of the gaps and ambiguities, would provide greater certainty.

Key findings

1. The SFV Board as yet has an incomplete view of enterprise risk, which may result in additional costs for electricity customers if not addressed.

2. Current understanding of roles and responsibilities of the CT, FT and SFV needs clarity to provide the foundational layer of assurance required for the anticipated increase in Roadmap scale and complexity. 

3. Large contracts are currently managed with manual processes, with limited existing capacity to manage scale and complexity yet to be developed.

Key recommendations

• Formalise governance - The FT and SFV together with the CT establish a tripartite agreement, or other form of agreement, to define roles and enhance active oversight of on-going financial risks.

• Strengthen financial and risk controls - The SFV implement a comprehensive enterprise risk management framework to manage contribution volatility risks for NSW electricity customers and help protect the liquidity of the Electricity Infrastructure Fund

Read the full Performance Audit Report:

Click on the link above to download the report (PDF)

Learn more about the NSW Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap:

NSW Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap (external link to the NSW Government Climate and Energy Action website)

Contact:

For enquiries about this report, please contact Christine Allen at Christine.Allen@ipart.nsw.gov.au.