Under CRDC's Funding Agreement with the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, CRDC is required to commission an independent review of its performance. The inaugural independent review was conducted by Forest Hill Consulting in May 2018. A typical review conducted by Forest Hill categorises recommendations as: critical (should be implemented as a matter of urgency in order for CRDC to meet its legal and regulatory obligations); important (actions that are expected to deliver significant benefits to the company and industry) or best practice (expected to deliver incremental performance improvements). The Independent Performance Review was completed in October 2018 and made 8 recommendations in total: no critical recommendations; two important recommendations; and six best practice recommendations.