2011 Award Winners

Boroondara City Council Wins 2011 Report of the Year Award

Boroondara City Council has won the 2011 Australasian Reporting Awards (ARA) Report of the Year Award in a year highlighted by very high standards of reporting despite the difficult economic times experienced by many organisations during the reporting period.

The ARA judges commented, “Boroondara City Council was a clear winner of the Report of the Year Award in a year in which the quality of many entrants’ reports noticeably improved. The Council’s strong commitment to transparency and accountability was a major feature that made the City of Boroondara report the winner.”

“The Council’s activities, achievements and challenges are clearly presented in a way that should meet the requirements of all readers – and the Council does not shy away from openly reporting on planned outcomes that were not achieved!”

“Clear descriptions of performance enable readers to assess the Council’s progress in achieving its objective of making Boroondara a great place in which to live, work, play or invest, and make the report a model of honest, open reporting.”

The Awards were presented at the ARA Awards Presentation Dinner held at the Grand Hyatt Melbourne on Thursday, 9 June which was attended by senior executives of major corporate, government and not-for-profit organisations from around Australia, and from New Zealand.

The ARA Awards are primarily a benchmarking activity - not a competition. The organisations that are able to satisfy the ARA criteria (to different extents) receive a Gold, Silver or Bronze Award. The ARA also presents Special Awards for reporting in areas that are critical to the performance and accountability of an organisation. These include awards for best reporting on Governance, Sustainability, and Occupational Health and Safety; and for Communication and Online Reporting.

ARA Chairman Tim Sheehy said, “The record number of Gold Awards shows that many organisations in Australia and New Zealand are very concerned about improving the quality of their annual reports, and further, that the quality of the best reports entered in these Awards is very high by world standards.”

“It also indicates the ARA and its strong supporters, which include the professional associations CPA Australia and Chartered Secretaries Australia, have been very effective in both promoting the need for high quality reporting, and in helping organisations improve their performance.”

The Australasian Reporting Awards were introduced 61 years ago as a means of improving accountability for, and public communication about, the activities of organisations. The ARA Awards process involves setting Criteria to guide report preparation and as a basis for adjudication; holding an annual seminar on how to prepare an effective annual report; and reviewing reports and rewarding organisations that satisfy the Criteria with an Award. Most importantly, the ARA arranges for adjudicators to provide constructive feedback to the people who prepare annual reports on what was well done and what could be done better so they can learn how to improve their next report.