The necessity for public accountability of all government services provided by
government contractors
Terms of reference
The Finance and Public Administration References Committee, noting the
necessity for public accountability of all government services provided by private
contractors, will examine:
(a) How best to ensure that the rights, interests and responsibilities of consumers,
contracted service providers and government agencies can be defined and protected;
particularly
(i) whether contracting out arrangements should be governed by written contracts
between the government agency and the service provider in all cases;
(ii) whether contracts should contain standard clauses dealing with matters such as
responsibility for record keeping; complaints and dispute resolution procedures;
allocation of responsibility between the contracting agency and the contractor in the
event of financial or other loss on the part of the consumer; and
(b) The adequacy of tendering procedures adopted by government agencies in contracting
out services.
(c) Whether the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman's Act 1976 should be extended to
ensure that it covers all contracted out government services.
(d) Ministerial responsibility to Parliament for contracted out services, noting that
in other parliamentary systems it has been argued that, with regard to corporatised or
contracted out government services, Ministerial responsibility extends only to policy
issues and does not encompass questions of day-to-day management and operation.
(e) Whether government, to meet its responsibilities for policy making, should have
access to all files; information etc generated by private-sector contractors in meeting
their contractual obligations.
(f) Whether and to what extent claims of commercial-in-confidence should be accepted as
limiting the right of Parliament to examine contractual arrangements between government
agencies and service providers.
The reference was extended on 27 May 1997 as follows:
(g) All aspects of outsourcing the information technology (IT) requirements of
Commonwealth departments and agencies, with particular reference to:
(i) the range of IT requirements of Commonwealth agencies,
(ii) the costs and benefits of IT outsourcing,
(iii) the privacy implications of IT outsourcing and the need for privacy protection
for sensitive information held by Commonwealth agencies,
(iv) the adequacy of measures proposed to ensure public accountability for taxpayers'
funds and public scrutiny of service providers,
(v) the approach being adopted by the Office of Government Information Technology to
the outsourcing of IT,
(vi) the means by which opportunities for in house bids and the domestic IT industry
can be maximised,
(vii) the employment implications of IT outsourcing, and
(viii) the experience of other jurisdictions with IT outsourcing and the international
implications for Australia of IT outsourcing.
(referred 4 November 1996; amended 27 May 1997; readopted 1 December 1998)
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