APPENDIX A
Referred 4 November 1997
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
(iii) definition of standards of service.
(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.
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