Program and project assurance for transport projects

NineSquared was engaged to provide assessments of major transport projects.

Major road and rail projects listed in the Australian Government’s National Partnership Agreement on Land Transport Infrastructure Projects (NPA) are subject to assurance assessment through the DITCRD Assurance and Compliance Program. Our team was engaged to deliver these assessments across 12 national road and rail projects.  The purpose of undertaking these reviews is to assist in ensuring that the Australian Governments investment of $100 billion over the next 10 years in infrastructure is achieving policy objectives.

The first stage of this engagement involved confirming the desktop review methodology, including ensuring that the checklists provided sufficient coverage of the relevant items under the Notes to Administration, National Partnership Agreement and National Land Transportation Act 2014. We then undertook an assessment of relevant Proponent information, documenting findings in the Checklist.  Additional information was sourced from the Proponents via teleconference. A risk rating was then applied in relation to each of the assessment areas. The seven assessment areas included:

1. Project Scope
2. Project Planning and Management
3. Contractor Selection and Performance
4. Project Governance
5. Stakeholders
6. Risk Management
7. Benefit Realisation.

Upon completion of the checklist and assessment of risk ratings, draft and final reports were prepared for client review and for proponent response.

Throughout this assignment our team prepared and maintained a review/assessment tracker, providing our client with insight into the progress of the assessment of each project. In addition, we produced a Ratings Dashboard for the assurance reviews which provided the client with visual report of risk ratings for key assessments areas across all projects. This Ratings Dashboard can be used to inform the focus areas of future assessments.