Agency Information Guide

Treasury Functions

A central agency with a wide responsibility for policy advice and direction, Treasury serves the Treasurer and the government by providing economic and financial advice for the overall management of the State's finances. This includes expenditure, revenue, and risk management strategies.

Treasury prepares the Budget and the Consolidated Financial Statements for the State. We also issue directions on accounting and financial matters to public sector agencies through the Treasurer's Directions, Treasury Circulars, and Statements of Best Practice.

The Secretary of Treasury is the employer of the NSW Public Service for industrial purposes and is responsible for the central management of NSW public sector industrial relations functions. As a principal department in the NSW Public Sector, Treasury has administrative responsibility for the following entities:

• Crown Finance Entity
• State Rail Authority Residual Holding Corporation
• Liability Management Ministerial Corporation
• Electricity Assets Ministerial Holding Corporation
• Ports Assets Ministerial Holding Corporation
• Electricity Transmission Ministerial Holding Corporation
• Alpha Distribution Ministerial Holding Corporation 
• Epsilon Distribution Ministerial Holding Corporation
• Ministerial Holding Corporation

The following entities fall within the Treasury cluster, but are not directly administered by Treasury: 

• Treasury Corporation (TCorp)
• Insurance and Care NSW (icare)
• SAS Trustee Corporation 
• Newcastle Port Corporation (Port Authority of New South Wales)
• Hunter Valley Training Company Pty Ltd
• Electricity Retained Interest Corporation – Ausgrid
• Electricity Retained Interest Corporation – Endeavour Energy
• Roads Retained Interests Pty Ltd – Sydney Motorway Corporation

For more information about what these organisations do, you can refer to their individual websites.

For more details on Treasury, its activities and its legislation, see Treasury’s Annual Report.

Treasury is led by an Executive Board made up of the Secretary, five Deputy Secretaries and two rotating Senior Executives. Each Deputy Secretary heads up a group and together are responsible for delivering Treasury’s strategy and goals:

• Policy and Budget
• Economic Strategy and Productivity
• Commercial
• Procurement Reform and Banking
• Financial Management and Services 
• Office of General Counsel
• Office of the Secretary and Ministerial Services

For further information about the structure of Treasury please see Our Treasury team.

The economy

Most of Treasury’s functions affect the public indirectly. Treasury’s corporate vision sets us to work towards ongoing prosperity for the people of New South Wales. Our key commitment to the public is to provide advice to government designed to deliver such prosperity and to sustain it over time. By providing economic and financial advice for the overall management of the State's finances, Treasury influences: 

• business confidence 
• jobs growth and employment opportunities 
• the range and standard of public services (including, for example, health, education, and transport services). 

Infrastructure

Treasury partners with other NSW Government agencies and other non-government delivery partners to deliver infrastructure projects and create a strong and sustainable NSW economy. 

Public participation

While Treasury’s key customers are other New South Wales Government departments and agencies on behalf of the people of NSW, we are committed to working closely with stakeholders and the wider community to continually improve services and achieve better outcomes for New South Wales.

If you would like to make any suggestions or leave any feedback, please email [email protected]
Public consultation associated with major policy developments generally occurs through the host departments and authorities. 

For projects and policy reforms being hosted by Treasury, dedicated lines of communication with the public and external stakeholders are established on a case by case basis. 

Productivity Commission

The Productivity Commission has set up an online portal for citizens and businesses to identify regulatory problem areas and provide fresh ideas to ease the burden. It can be found at www.productivity.nsw.gov.au 

Visualising the Budget

The Budget Data Visualisation tool is an interactive tool enabling you to drill down into the major expenses and revenues for each agency within Treasury’s cluster, for each financial year. It makes it easy to see where funds are generated, as well as distributed and spent. For more information visit the website at www.budget.nsw.gov.au

Feedback 

Treasury’s website incorporates a feedback channel which enables you to provide any compliments about what Treasury did well, as well as any complaints and also allows you to make suggestions of how Treasury can improve. You have the option of submitting your feedback either through the Treasury website, via email or via phone on 02 9228 4567.

Treasury holds a wide variety of information in relation to its functions and operations. Presented below are the major categories of information and the various types of information within each category.

Publicly available information

A large range of information is available free of charge on NSW Treasury’s websites:

• www.treasury.nsw.gov.au
• www.budget.nsw.gov.au
• www.productivity.nsw.gov.au 

Mandatory open access Information

Mandatory open access information is information Treasury must make publicly available unless it is not in the public interest to do so.

On this Treasury website, we make the following mandatory open access information available free of charge:

• Agency Information Guide
• Policy documents
• Disclosure log
• Register of government contracts
• Documents tabled in Parliament
• Record of open access information not publicly available
• Major assets list
• Property disposal list
• Guarantee of service
• Code of Conduct

For further information, visit the open access information page.

Proactive release

Treasury is required to have a program for the proactive release of government information. Proactive disclosure is the way Treasury considers making information publicly available unless it is against the public interest. Treasury’s Proactive Release Policy is available here. 

Information proactively disclosed by Treasury is made available on one of Treasury’s websites, on www.opengov.nsw.gov.au or other appropriate outlets.

If information sought is not available on Treasury’s websites, members of the public can suggest that information be proactively disclosed (if held by Treasury). Please forward any suggestions to the Information Access Unit at [email protected].

Open data

Treasury is committed to improving transparency, participation, collaboration and innovation by increasing access to government information.

Treasury is committed to the NSW Government Open Data Policy and seeks to make appropriate government data available to the public. 

Some datasets, including those containing private and commercially sensitive information, must be protected appropriately. It may be necessary to remove personal or identifying information from datasets, in line with the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 and other applicable legislation.

Datasets that are subject to release will be published on one of Treasury’s websites or at www.data.nsw.gov.au

Informal request

Members of the public can request information from Treasury on any topic of interest. If the information is clearly in the public interest to disclose, it will be supplied free of charge.

Treasury may attach conditions on the disclosure of information that is sensitive or confidential but relevant to the person making the request. Under the GIPA Act, there is no right of review for informal applications.

If you would like to make an informal request for information, please contact the Information Access Unit at [email protected].

For more information about making an informal request, please go to the informal request page.

Formal request (access application)

If the information you seek is not available on our website and we cannot provide it to you as an informal request for information, you may access the information by lodging a formal access application providing there is no overriding public interest against disclosure. 

A formal access application for information should be a last-resort option for accessing government information. We will decide your formal access application within 20 working days (subject to any extension allowed for under the Act). If an extension of time is required to deal with your application, we will advise you in writing.

For more information about lodging a formal access application (including fees, charges, review rights and how to submit a valid application, please go to the formal request page. 

You should forward your formal request for information to:

Associate Director, Information Access 
NSW Treasury 
GPO Box 5469 
SYDNEY NSW 2001

Fees and charges

A $30.00 application fee applies to formal requests made under the GIPA Act. Treasury has the discretion to waive or reduce the application fee.  

Treasury may also charge $30.00 per hour after the first hour for its time in processing an application. The application fee counts towards the first hour of processing your application. A 50 per cent reduction in processing fees may apply if you can provide evidence to either of the following points: 

• you would suffer financial hardship 
• the information is of special benefit to the public generally

If applying for your own personal information, Treasury cannot charge for the first 20 hours of processing. 

For more information on these fees and charges, go to the formal request page. 

Information Access and Governance Unit

If you have any questions or need advice about accessing the information held by the Treasury, please contact the Information Access Unit by emailing [email protected] or calling (02) 9228 3232. You may also write to:  

Associate Director, Information Access 

NSW Treasury 
GPO Box 5469 
SYDNEY NSW 2001 

NSW Information Commissioner

You can obtain details about your right to government information from the Office of the Information Commissioner by emailing [email protected] or calling 1800 472 679. You may also write to: 

NSW Information Commissioner  
Level 17, 201 Elizabeth Street  
SYDNEY NSW 2000 

More information on the NSW Information Commissioner is available at www.ipc.nsw.gov.au