Chapter 4—Management and accountability
Procurement
While the agency has a dedicated Procurement Officer to coordinate and advise on procurement matters, it operates a devolved framework that places responsibility for actual procurement activity with line area managers.
All procurement and purchasing activities in 2008–09 were conducted in accordance with the Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines and its principles, such as value for money and encouraging competition; the Chief Executive’s Instructions; and the agency’s administrative procedures and accounting policies. All of these were available to staff online or in hard copy from the Finance Section.
Consultants are engaged when necessary expertise is unavailable within the agency, or when required specialised skills are not available without diverting resources from higher priority tasks. In accordance with the Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines, consultants are selected by open tender, panel arrangements or select tendering.
The main areas in which consultancies were let were heritage work, exhibition and interpretation content development.
During 2008–09, 15 new consultancy contracts were entered into involving total actual expenditure of $0.325 million (inclusive of GST). In addition, four contracts from 2007–08 were active during 2008–09, bringing the total active ongoing active consultancy contracts to 19 during the 2008–09 year, involving total actual expenditure of $0.645 million (GST inclusive). Details of all consultancies over $10,000 are at Appendix J.
Annual reports contain information about actual expenditure on contracts for consultancies. Information on the value of contracts and consultancies is available on the AusTender website, www.tenders.gov. au.
The agency’s standard contract templates include an Australian National Audit Office access clause. All contracts signed during the reporting period for $100,000 or more (GST inclusive) had provision for the Auditor-General to access the contractors’ premises. No contract for $10,000 or more (GST inclusive) was exempted by the Chief Finance Officer from publication on AusTender.