Annual Report 2002–03

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Management and accountability

Assets management
Consultants and competitive tendering and contracting
Advertising and market research

Assets management

The department's assets management strategy assists it to achieve efficient asset utilisation and allows it to identify under-performing assets and, if necessary, to redeploy capital to more value added activities.

The total written-down value of the department's assets is $18.38 million.

Losses of equipment during the financial year were mainly due to theft and included three laptop computers and one monitor. The cost to the department was $7,100 and was significantly lower than last year ($27,800).

The department also undertook a major upgrade of departmental computers during the financial year. The upgrade included disposal of surplus and obsolete equipment.

Consultants and competitive tendering and contracting

Consultants

The policies and procedures for selecting consultants and approving expenditure for their services are set out in the CEIs.

In 2002–03, 33 consultants were engaged to provide professional independent and expert advice or services to the department, at a total cost of $234,605. This expenditure covered payments made on all new contracts and payments made on contracts let in previous years. In 2001–02, 45 consultants were engaged at a total cost of $503,540.

Appendix 12 contains details of consultancy services let to the value of $10,000 or more.

Competitive tendering and contracting

The following services are provided free of charge by other parliamentary departments and were not included in the competitive tendering and contracting (CTC) process:

computing, telecommunications and audiovisual infrastructure, facilities and support services (Department of the Parliamentary Reporting Staff)
building support systems (Joint House Department)
library services (Department of the Parliamentary Library).

The only other service that is provided by another Australian Government body to the department is security in some areas of the parliamentary precinct by the Australian Protective Service (APS). Government has made the decision to use the APS for this service and the APS contract is not included in the CTC process.

No contract was exempted by the Clerk from being published in the Purchasing and Disposal Gazette.

Advertising and market research

Details of payments made to advertising and market research organisations in 2002–03 are in Appendix 11.

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