Financial Scrutiny of Government by a Parliamentary Committee: The challenges of facing the estimates and financial operations committee of the Legislative Council of Western Australia

Pursuant to its terms of reference, the Committee scrutinises the expenditure of government. How does a committee charged with this function make sense of an extremely complex government and large public sector and develop focus areas to look at, with the limited resources available to a committee? This is examined in an historical context as well as through the experiences of the Estimates and Financial Operations Committee of the Legislative Council of Western Australia.