An audit into whether three public sector Agencies were strategically planning the material and human resources needed to deliver Victoria’s major infrastructure projects has found they were not.
Auditor-General, Andrew Greaves said his audit, Major Infrastructure Program Delivery Capability examined the Department of Treasury and Finance’s (DTF) Office of Projects Victoria, the Department of Transport’s (DoT) Major Transport Infrastructure Authority and the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions (DJPR).
“The audited Agencies are not sufficiently strategic in planning for the material and human resources they need to deliver major Government infrastructure projects,” Mr Greaves said.
“The consequence of this is that the risk of cost overruns and delays will be higher than it needs to be,” he said.
Mr Greaves said that while Agencies had identified potentially critical resource shortages and risks, there were significant gaps in the information they used to assess and address the shortages and how they coordinated the work.
He said that as a result, no Agency fully understood the construction industry and public sector’s ability to deliver the Government’s pipeline, or how effective their work to mitigate resource shortages was.
“The audited Agencies’ advice to Government does not consistently disclose the extent of these knowledge gaps,” he said.
“This reduces the reliability of their advice to the Government about these risks.”
Mr Greaves made 11 recommendations in total and many were directed towards two or more Agencies, with nine made to DTF, four to DoT and three to DJPR.
He made six recommendations related to the need for the Agencies to determine the size and timing of resource shortages and risks for the Government and transport pipelines, and five recommendations on strengthening advice to Government and planning how to address shortages and risks.
The Auditor-General’s 69-page Report can be accessed at this PS News link.
