The Special Broadcasting Service Corporation (SBS) is a corporate Commonwealth entity established under the Special Broadcasting Service Act 1991 (SBS Act) ‘to provide multilingual and multicultural radio, television and digital media services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians, and, in doing so, reflect Australia’s multicultural society’.

This topic was selected for audit as part of the ANAO’s ongoing audit program that examines aspects of the implementation of the PGPA Act. This audit provides an opportunity for the ANAO to review whether the SBS Board (SBS Board/the Board) has established effective arrangements to comply with selected legislative and policy requirements and adopted practices that support effective governance. The audit also identifies practices that support effective governance that could be applied in other entities. This audit is one of a series of governance audits that apply a standard methodology to the governance of individual boards.

The objective of the audit was to examine the effectiveness of the governance arrangements for the SBS.

The high level criteria for this audit are to examine whether:

• the Board’s governance and administrative arrangements are consistent with relevant legislative and policy requirements;
• the Board has structured its own operations in a manner that supports effective governance; and
• the Board has implemented fit-for-purpose arrangements to oversight compliance/alignment with key legislative and policy requirements.