South Australia's corruption watchdog has announced it will evaluate the state government's grant administration system.
Commissioner Ann Vanstone announced an evaluation will be undertaken by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) to identify "areas for improvement in the way in which grants are administered by public authorities".
"The evaluation will provide the opportunity to highlight practices, policies and procedures which are apt to guard against corruption," Ms Vanstone said in a statement.
"In the coming days, I will write to a number of public authorities seeking details of the grants they administer and the processes they employ.
"Those responses will inform our subsequent activities, which will include reviewing specific grants programs, conducting interviews and inviting submissions."
The commission's move follows criticism of the new Labor government's $84 million sports grants program, which bypassed the departmental assessment process to primarily award funding to projects in seats held or gained by Labor at the 2022 election.
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas said he was not worried by the ICAC's announcement.
"They're simply doing an evaluation of policies and procedures across a wide range of areas and that's a welcome thing," he said.
"We think that's a good thing … they've done this a number of times over the years including for Safe Work."
After controversial changes to its powers unanimously passed parliament last year, the ICAC is no longer able to initiate its own investigations on matters of public interest.
Mr Malinauskas said the ICAC evaluation was unlikely to make Labor consider having election commitments objectively assessed by relevant departments.
"Absolutely not," he said.
"When you make an election commitment you go to the people of South Australia and you seek their endorsement for the delivery of it and having received that mandate at last year's state election, we're making sure we're delivering on those election commitments."
Deputy Opposition Leader John Gardner did not want to comment on the ICAC's evaluation.
"The ICAC very rarely issues public statements of the nature that they've done this morning and I think goes to the gravity and seriousness of the work that ICAC does," he said.
"I don't propose to make any commentary on that statement."
Recommendations will be made to state parliament by the end of the year.
