During this reporting period, we complied with the Australian Government’s procurement policy framework. We encouraged competition, value for money, transparency and accountability.

All procurement was conducted in line with the Commonwealth Procurement Rules to ensure the efficient, effective, economical and ethical use of Australian Government resources.

During this reporting period, no contracts were exempt from reporting on AusTender on the basis that publishing contract details would disclose exempt matters under the FOI Act. All awarded contracts valued at $100,000 (GST inclusive) or greater contained standard clauses granting the Auditor-General access to contractors’ premises.

Consultants

We engaged consultants where we lacked specialist expertise or when independent research, review or assessment was required.

Typically, we engaged consultants to:

• investigate or diagnose a defined issue or problem
• carry out defined reviews or evaluations
• provide independent advice, information or creative solutions to assist with our decision-making.

During this reporting period, three new consultancy contracts were entered into involving total actual expenditure of $185,543 (excluding GST). In addition, one ongoing consultancy contract was active during the period, involving total actual expenditure of $50,000 (excluding GST).

Before we engaged consultants, we took into account the skills and resources required for the task, the skills available internally and the cost-effectiveness of engaging external expertise. All the decisions that we made relating to consultancy contracts were made in line with the PGPA Act and related regulations, including the Commonwealth Procurement Rules.

This report contains information about actual expenditure on contracts for consultancies. Information on the value of contracts and consultancies is available on the AusTender website.

Small business

We supported small business participation in the Commonwealth Government procurement market and engaged with small businesses wherever appropriate during our work. Small and medium enterprises (SME) and small enterprise participation statistics are available on the Department of Finance’s website. We also recognised the importance of ensuring that small businesses were paid on time. Our statistics are available in the Survey of Australian Government Payments to Small Business, which is available on the Department of Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business’s website.