How to write Government annual reports

What is an annual report?

A government annual report is a published document given to stakeholders by public corporations as an official disclosure of their financial performance. It allows the stakeholders to assess the success of the organisation.

What is in a Government annual report?

Government departments, agencies and other bodies produce annual reports. They include financial statements. They also, perhaps more importantly, report on how well the organisations are achieving specific objectives and meeting the broader, whole-of-government objectives. These may include energy saving, sustainability, waste reduction, anti-discrimination, etcetera.

The report allows the Minister (and the public) to assess a department’s achievements using key performance indicators to determine whether the department has met its objectives.

What are key performance indicators?

To make reporting open and transparent many organizations use key performance indicators – measurements developed specifically to measure organizations’ strategic performance.

These are very important in the government sector because without profit measurements there is a need for alternative assessments of an organisation’s success.

How do you write a Government annual report?

To write a Government department’s annual report:

• you first need to identify the senior people accountable for each key performance indicator or divisional or organisational performance measure and get them to provide the information in the correct format;

• you edit the material into a compliant format (to meet Government guidelines for annual reports in their jurisdiction) and write additional material such as  the Director General’s (CEO’S) introduction;

• you give the draft back to the authors for corrections and amendments;

• when you get their comments you do the final edit and submit the final document for preliminary approval before getting the document laid-out; and

• Get final approval and send it off to be published (if paper copies are required)  before it has to be presented to Parliament.

Madrigal Communications has experience helping government departments and not for profits with their  corporate reporting.