The ANAO June 2021 report Administration of Commuter Car Park Projects within the Urban Congestion Fund highlights issues with pork barrelling and administrative inefficiency.
It states
The Urban Congestion Fund (UCF) was established in the 2018–19 Budget. The stated objective of the UCF was to ‘support projects to remediate pinch points, improve traffic safety and increase network efficiency for commuter and freight movements in urban areas’. Total funding for the UCF has grown from $1 billion to $4.8 billion as at 31 March 2021.The $660 million National Commuter Car Park Fund is a component of the UCF. ... As at 31 March 2021, there had been 155 candidate projects selected under the UCF involving 188 sub-projects or sites. The types of projects announced included road upgrades, road extensions, intersection upgrades, level-crossing removals and, as outlined below, commuter car park upgrades.
For commuter car parks within the UCF, as at 31 March 2021, there had been 44 commuter car park projects announced involving upgrades at 47 identified sites with a total Australian Government funding commitment of $660.4 million. For these 47 sites: assessment work had been completed for 10 car parks resulting in $100 million of Australian Government funding being approved for the full project (including delivery of construction work). Construction had been completed at two sites and had commenced at a further three sites; for a further 23 projects, the department had assessed proposals for the funding of scoping/development work with $22 million in funding approved (of the $300 million committed to those 23 projects); one had not been assessed or approved as it is being fully funded by the Victorian Government; two projects had been cancelled; and no assessment work had yet been undertaken in relation to the remaining 11 projects with an aggregate commitment of $175 million reflecting the situation that a project proposal had not yet been received from the identified proponent. ...
The objective of the audit was to assess the effectiveness of the administration of the commuter car park projects within the UCF.
To form a conclusion against this objective, the following high-level criteria were applied: Was the UCF well designed? Was an appropriate approach taken to identifying and selecting commuter car park projects? Were funding decisions on commuter car park projects informed by appropriate advice? Are approved commuter car park projects being delivered?
, the ANAO conclusion is that the Department of Infrastructure’s administration of the commuter car park projects within the UCF was not effective
The design and implementation of the Urban Congestion Fund relied on existing arrangements generic to infrastructure investment projects. The department did not develop a program-specific implementation plan, performance indicators or evaluation plan. As a $4.8 billion initiative, which included a car park component that was new for the Australian Government, customisation was warranted. The potential for research and data to inform program design and project identification was not fully realised. Record keeping was not compliant with departmental and Australian Government policies.
The department’s approach to identifying and selecting commuter car park projects for funding commitment was not appropriate. It was not designed to be open or transparent. The department did not engage with state governments and councils, which increased the risk that selected projects would not deliver the desired outcomes at the expected cost to the Australian Government. Departmental advice did not contain an assessment against the investment principles or policy objectives and it was not demonstrated that projects were selected on merit. The distribution of projects selected reflected the geographic and political profile of those given the opportunity by the government to identify candidates for funding consideration.
Oui, oui, said the piggies
While the department provided written briefings that included assessment reports to advise the Minister to approve funding for 33 projects up to 31 March 2021, the underlying assessment work was not to an appropriate standard. Insufficient assessment work has been undertaken by the department to satisfy itself that projects are eligible for funding under the National Land Transport Act 2014. In relation to the merits of projects, the department did not seek to establish assessment criteria, and the assessment work has not adequately demonstrated that approved projects will provide value for money.
By 31 March 2021, five of the 47 commuter car park sites originally announced (11 per cent) had commenced construction, with construction of two of these sites reaching practical completion. By this date, the department had paid $76.5 million of program funding (12 per cent of the total committed) relating to 28 sites. The department has not had sufficiently strong controls in place to establish, for each approved project, clear delivery timelines and links between payments and milestones.
Further
The department did not develop a plan for implementing the UCF governance arrangements, including for how the UCF principles would be applied to commuter car park projects. It did not develop a plan identifying the avenues through which UCF projects could be identified.
While some appropriate analysis of urban congestion in Australia was undertaken by the department, the extent to which it informed the Fund’s design and implementation was limited.
Performance indicators and an evaluation strategy specific to the UCF have not been developed. Instead, the department is relying on the broader Infrastructure Investment Program arrangements.
The majority of the records of the design and delivery of the Fund were not being appropriately managed within a records management system. In response to record keeping issues raised by the ANAO, in late 2020 the department initiated actions to address non-compliance with departmental and Australian Government record keeping policies. The department was also in the final stages of replacing its existing IT system for administering the Infrastructure Investment Program, which it expects will improve data management.
Project identification and selection
The selection of 47 commuter car park sites for funding commitment were decisions of government taken over the period January to July 2019 and: effected in 38 cases (81 per cent) by the written agreement of the Prime Minister to a written request from Ministers; effected in seven cases (15 per cent) by the election commitment process4; and in two cases (four per cent) the department had not evidenced how the funding commitment was effected, beyond email advice from the Minister’s Office and a media announcement by the Prime Minister.
There was not appropriate engagement with state and council delivery partners to identify candidate projects by the department. The limited engagement that did occur was by the Minister’s Office with some states and by Parliamentarians or candidates with some councils. The associated risk of selecting projects that were not feasible given site constraints or costs, or were not supported or co-funded by the intended delivery partner, was realised in some cases.
Neither the department’s advice nor the recorded reasons for selection outlined each project’s merits against the investment principles or how each project would contribute to achieving the policy objective of the UCF. As a result, there is little evidence to demonstrate that the selection of commuter car park projects was based on assessed merit against the investment principles or achievement of the policy objective.
Returning to the barrel ...
Project distribution reflected the geographic and political profile of those given the opportunity to identify candidate projects for funding consideration. The approach to project identification included canvassing the Member of the House of Representatives for 23 electorates, as well as Coalition Senators or candidates for six electorates then held by the Australian Labor Party or Centre Alliance.
The distribution that resulted from the approach taken included that: 64 per cent of projects were located in Melbourne, representing more than 2.5 times the number of projects located in Sydney notwithstanding that Infrastructure Australia has identified that the majority of the most congested roads in Australia are located in Sydney; the Melbourne projects were predominantly located towards the South-East, whereas data shows that Melbourne’s most congested roads in 2016, and as forecast in 2031, are predominantly in the North-West; and nationally, 77 per cent of the commuter car park sites selected were in Coalition-held electorates and a further 10 per cent were in one of the six non-Coalition electorates canvassed. ...
Inadequate assessment attention has been given to the eligibility of projects. The assessment guidelines do not address how the department will assess eligibility, and was not addressed in the department’s project assessment reports. For each of the 33 projects assessed up to 31 March 2021, the department identified in decision briefings provided to the Minister a subsection of the National Land Transport Act 2014 under which it considered the project to be eligible. The ANAO’s analysis was that, of those 33 projects: three were not eligible under the subsection identified by the department, although they were eligible under another subsection; one project was not eligible— a finding that has been accepted by the department with the department advising the ANAO that it is seeking to address this situation before construction commences; and 10 proposed sites were not attached to a rail station which raised questions as to their eligibility that were not addressed in the relevant project assessment reports, but were addressed by the department in responding to the ANAO.
The merits of projects has not been appropriately assessed by the department to inform its recommendations to the Minister. The design of the UCF did not include the development and Ministerial approval of merit assessment criteria. It has been common for the assessments that have been completed to not: identify the number of additional parking spaces that would result from the project; compare the cost of each additional car park to a relevant benchmark; and/or identify that there is a sufficiently high net economic benefit from the project. While the extent and depth of analysis expected for scoping/development projects may differ from that expected for delivery projects, the level of analysis undertaken by the department did not differ greatly. For example, under both categories of assessments, it was common for the department to not analyse information such as the number of car park spaces expected to be provided. ...
Clear delivery timelines and milestone payment schedules were not established at project approval stage. The department advised the Minister that it would establish these after the project was approved. However, 13 of the 33 approved projects did not have any milestones recorded or had incomplete milestones recorded, in part due to not yet having established the delivery timeline. Advanced payments increased project risk to the Australian Government. Monthly reporting obtained by the department from proponents on progress against milestones has not been to a consistent standard.
