The Health Department directly sourced Ernst & Young to evaluate an Indigenous health program. No competitive bid. The contract grew from $3.5 million to $8.2 million — a 134% blowout. Program evaluation is core departmental work. The department already had the data. Ernst & Young walked away with $8.2 million of your money anyway.
$4.7M of Australian taxpayer money was wasted at Department of Health and Aged Care. The Health Department directly sourced Ernst & Young to evaluate an Indigenous health program. No competitive bid. The contract grew from $3.5 million to $8.2 million — a 134% blowout. Program evaluation is core departmental work. The department already had the data. Ernst & Young walked away with $8.2 million of your money anyway.
Spread across Australia's 10.8 million households, that's roughly $0 per family — enough in total for covering the yearly wages of 63 public servants.
The Department of Health and Aged Care directly sourced Ernst & Young for an evaluation of Indigenous health programs. The contract value grew from $3.5 million to $8.2 million, a 134% increase. For a program evaluation — a core departmental function — the use of direct sourcing and the significant cost overrun raise questions about whether internal capability was considered, and whether the original estimate was deliberately low to avoid higher-scrutiny procurement thresholds.
Require Health to conduct program evaluations in-house or through competitive tender — not direct-sourced to Big Four at 2× market rates.
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