Commonwealth Departments and Agencies: Consultancies

Mr Pearce asked all Ministers in writing on 12 March 2008:

Between 3 December 2007 and 3 March 2008, how many consultancies has the Minister’s department entered into or engaged; and what is the total expected cost of these respective consultancies.

Mr Tanner - The answer to the honourable member’s question on behalf of all Ministers, is as follows:

All agencies subject to the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 (FMA Act) are required to report procurement contracts awarded on AusTender (the Government’s tender and procurement reporting system) where the contract value is $10,000 or more.

Of the 99 FMA Act agencies which were required to gazette their contract details, 97 agencies have complied with the new reporting requirements, including reporting consultancy status, that took effect on 1 July 2007. The remaining agencies, the Department of Defence and the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO), have yet to fully transition to the new reporting requirements.

All contract details reported on AusTender are publicly available at www.tenders.gov.au. As at 5 May 2008, the 97 agencies which have so far reported on AusTender, entered into 543 consultancies, comprising a total amount of $50,656,114, for the period identified. Individual details for these consultancies can be found on AusTender under the Reports menu. The reports can be extracted on a whole of government or individual agency basis.

The Department of Defence has informed me that for Defence and DMO, the total number and value of consultancies entered into for the period identified is 203 at $17,198,630. Of these amounts, Defence let 168 contracts with a value of $14,038,241 and DMO 35 contracts valued at $3,160,389. Defence will also subject these amounts to further quality assurance as part of Defence’s annual reporting obligations.

While AusTender contains details of contracts valued at $10,000 or more, I consider that it would be an unreasonable diversion of resources for agencies to provide details of all consultancies valued at less than $10,000.

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