Executive Summary

It is inevitable in a review of this nature that our findings tend to focus more on perceived shortcomings of the program than on areas where it operates well.

So it is appropriate to state in this summary that overall we have found Q&A to be a responsible, professional production that strives to meet the standards expected of it by the ABC and by the wider community.

We believe that acting on our conclusions and recommendations, usually in consequence of identified shortcomings, will assist the program to build on that foundation and will also provide the public with increased confidence in the program’s standing.

It is also one of the features of this type of review that it will identify deficiencies that may not be readily apparent to the production team. In particular what may seem to be appropriate production decisions in one program may be less valid when seen in the context of the cumulative effect of similar decisions across a number of programs.

Our review identified four key areas into which most of our conclusions and recommendations can be grouped. They are characterised by their relevance not to just one of the questions posed in our terms of reference but to several of them.