This audit would assess how the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) monitors and assesses outcomes for National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participants and uses that data to assess the effectiveness of NDIS funded supports, supports the maintenance of the National Disability Data Asset (NDDA) and informs continuous improvement of NDIA processes.

The 2024–25 Federal Budget provided $45.5 million over four years (and $13.3 million per year ongoing) to establish a NDIS Evidence Advisory Committee to provide advice to government on the efficacy and cost-benefits of types of supports funded by the NDIS, aimed at improving outcomes and ensuring better value for participants.

This audit would assess whether the award of funding under the Urban Rivers and Catchments Program was effective and consistent with the Commonwealth Grant Rules and Guidelines.

The Urban Rivers and Catchments Program is a $200 million grants program that comprises two rounds. The 2022–23 October Federal Budget provided $91 million (from 2022–23) for the first round of the program, and the 2023–24 May Federal Budget provided $109 million (from 2024–25) for the second round of the program. The second round closed on 13 February 2024.

As part of its responsibility for managing Australia’s participation in World Expositions, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) manages the design, commissioning and decommissioning of a temporary national pavilion. The department is conducting procurement processes for the design, construction and decommissioning of the pavilion. The pavilion will provide a number of areas: public exhibition and visitor experience areas; function and representational areas; cultural performance areas; commercial retail, food and beverage areas; queuing space and back of house technical areas. The budget for procurements related to the pavilion totals over $68 million, including lead design consultant, project manager and construction contractor.

The audit would examine DFAT’s management of the pavilion project, with a particular focus on the conduct of the procurements and management of the resulting contracts.

This audit would assess the effectiveness of the early implementation of the Rewiring the Nation program.

The Australian Government allocated $20 billion to establish the Rewiring the Nation program in the October 2022–23 Federal Budget. The Rewiring the Nation Office in the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water is responsible for managing the program, the Australian Energy Market Operator will act as a technical advisor, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation will act as the financing arm.

The program has supported several transmission projects including VNI West (KerangLink) between Victoria and NSW; Sydney Ring – Hunter Transmission Project; Central-West Orana Renewable Energy Zones; HumeLink; and the Marinus Link between Tasmania and Victoria.

This audit would assess the effectiveness of the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) in the design and implementation of its new customer relationship management (CRM) system named ‘PACE’, including the broader supporting program known as ‘3P’ (Participant, Platform and Process).

PACE will replace existing business and payments systems and portals with a new embedded CRM system. PACE is intended to improve system controls, including controls to validate payments for services. Following a pilot of PACE that started in November 2022 for Tasmanian participants and providers, PACE implementation began across all remaining NDIA locations on 30 October 2023. Full implementation is expected to take 18 months with NDIA’s existing systems continuing to be used alongside PACE during that period.

This audit would review the progress of the Digital Identity System implementation, design and functionality, including the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders and the allocation and expenditure of funding, including contract management.

The Digital Identity program is delivered by Services Australia, Australian Taxation Office (ATO), Department of Home Affairs and Department of Finance. Components of the program include the Trusted Digital Identity Framework, the Identity Exchanges (delivered by Services Australia), myGovID (the Commonwealth’s Identity Provider, delivered by ATO) and connected services to the system.

The Digital ID Act 2024 and the Digital ID (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Act will commence on 1 December 2024 and support the expansion of the Australian Government Digital ID System and introduce a voluntary accreditation scheme for digital ID services providers.

The Auditor-General is responsible for managing the ANAO within the arrangements of the broader Australian Public Service. These obligations are met by being transparent and reporting on the ANAO activities and operations.

This audit would assess whether the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA’s) procurement of counselling service providers for the Open Arms program has been conducted in accordance with the Commonwealth Procurement Rules.

Open Arms is a counselling service for Australian veterans and their families, provided through DVA. Open Arms counselling is delivered by a national network of mental health professionals, both in Open Arms centres across the country and by partnerships with private psychologists and social workers, called Outreach Program Counsellors (OPCs). In 2022–23, 323,874 Open Arms services were provided to 43,134 veterans and their families with the program costing $115.6 million. In February 2024, DVA commenced a procurement process to develop a panel of OPCs. The establishment of the panel is expected to be completed by 30 June 2024.

The audit would assess Services Australia’s procurement of a Network Transformation Partner including planning, achieving value for money, design of performance measures in the contract with the successful tenderer and progress to date in managing the contract.

On 8 January 2024, Services Australia issued a request for tender titled ‘Provision of a Network Transformation Partner Services Stage 1’. The tender closes on 14 March 2024. Services Australia is seeking: a Network Transformation Partner (NTP) to assist the agency in replacing Services Australia’s existing Wide Area Network (WAN). In replacing the existing network, the agency will seize the opportunity to transform from a traditional network to a Software defined solution across WAN, LAN, and WLAN and mobile satellite services. Working with the agency, the Partner will plan, design, build and implement the transformed network and provide managed network services to enable business as usual operations post implementation.

The audit objective was to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the Services Australia’s management of Smart Centres’ telephony services.

Services Australia operates the largest contact centre in the southern hemisphere with over 79 smart centres across Australia delivering telephony and processing services for Centrelink, Medicare and Child Support, and surge services for Department of Veterans’ Affairs and whole of government activities. In 2022–23 Services Australia reported that it handled 55.2 million calls. In October 2023, Services Australia informed Parliament that over 9,400,000 customers were booked into virtual waiting rooms and the longest wait time was almost 3 hours, over 9 million customers received congestion messaging and over 4 million calls were terminated by the customer. In the 2024–25 Federal Budget, the government announced $1.8 billion over three years from 2023–24 for additional frontline staff to help stabilise Services Australia claims backlog and service standards.

Services Australia’s reported in its 2022–23 Annual Performance Statements that it partially achieved its strategic performance measure of 70 per cent of customers served within 15 minutes. Services Australia also reported that the performance result may have been impacted by the lack of system functionality to combine call wait times once a call had been transferred.

The audit would follow-on from Auditor-General Report No. 28 2018–19 Management of Smart Centres’ Centrelink Telephone Services — Follow-up which contained two recommendations relating to monitoring and reporting on effectiveness of digital service delivery and wait times and finalising the review of key performance indicators.