The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet:
- provide stronger guidance to entities in their development and updating of entity level and relevant national level crisis management policies and plans; and
- provide a formal response to the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit that outlines actions taken to address recommendation three from Report 494: Inquiry into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's crisis management and arrangements

To provide improved oversight and assurance in its administration of the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) recommends that the Attorney‐General’s Department:
(a) obtain project level information from states and territories to enable more informed analysis of claim amounts; and
(b) implement a risk‐based approach to examining the eligibility and value for money of a sample of recovery and reconstruction projects.

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) recommends that the Attorney‐General’s Department significantly improve the administration of disaster relief and recovery funding by:
(a) adopting more timely processes for developing, finalising and promulgating disaster funding guidelines and advisories; and
(b) implementing administrative arrangements that provide it with greater details of the amounts included in expenditure claims, including project specific information.

The ANAO recommends that Centrelink develop and promulgate a business continuity plan (BCP) template and require business units to develop BCPs that identify:
(a) risks to the business/service and their impact, based on the respective business impact analysis; and
(b) risk treatments and business resumption tasks to manage these risks, which can then be tested on a regular basis.

To improve the governance arrangements for business continuity management (BCM) in Centrelink ,the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO)
recommends that:
(a) the recently constituted Business Continuity, Crisis Management and Security Sub committee be provided with regular reports on IT business continuity
issues; and
(b) Centrelink review existing BC and risk management planning and implementation activities to identify areas where coordination and collaboration could be further improved.

To improve the management of the National Medical Stockpile, the ANAO recommends that the Department of Health and Ageing incorporate into its governance framework:
(a) an assessment of the risks associated with the Stockpile in a risk management plan that is periodically reviewed; and
(b) a performance management and reporting framework for the Stockpile.