A performance audit into the Departments of Health and Industry, Science, Energy and Resources’ (DISER) procurement of COVID-19 supplies has found it was largely consistent with the proper use and management of public resources.
Auditor-General Grant Hehir said his report, COVID-19 Procurements and Deployments of the National Medical Stockpile, was one of five performance audits conducted under his Office’s multi-year strategy that focused on the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and was the second of two performance audits dealing with the National Medical Stockpile (NMS).
Mr Hehir said the Department of Health and DISER procured personal protective equipment (PPE) and other supplies for the NMS, and the Department of Health deployed PPE to health, aged care and disability workers.
“Procurement processes for the COVID-19 NMS procurements were largely consistent with the proper use and management of public resources,” Mr Hehir said.
“Inconsistent due diligence checks of suppliers impacted on procurement effectiveness and record keeping could have been improved,” he said.
“In the absence of risk-based planning and systems that sufficiently considered the likely ways in which the NMS would be needed during a pandemic, Health adapted its processes during the COVID-19 emergency to deploy NMS supplies.”
Mr Hehir said large quantities of PPE were deployed to eligible recipients however, due to a lack of performance measures, targets and data, the effectiveness of COVID-19 NMS deployments couldn’t be established.
He made four recommendations to the Department of Health, including that it implement new record keeping protocols; undertake regular deployment drills; implement a strategic deployment plan for NMS; and develop a performance framework for NMS deployments.
The Auditor-General’s Report can be viewed online at this PS News link and his 79-page printed Report at this link.
The audit team was Christine Chalmers, Irena Korenevski, Shane Armstrong, William Richards, Yoann Colin, Xiaoyan Lu, Song Khor, and Deborah Jackson.
