The Digital Transformation Agency has handed consulting giant KPMG a $850,000 contract running for just two months, with the agency declining to explain the details of this work.
Tender documents published last week show the multinational consultancy firm is being paid $850,563 for “program support” to be delivered from 1 May to 30 June. This equates to the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) paying KPMG more than $100,000 per week for this work.
A spokesperson for the DTA said the work was part of the continued “reuse” of digital capabilities but declined to provide information on deliverables.
“The DTA is continuing work to support the reuse of digital capabilities,” a DTA spokesperson told InnovationAus.
“[The contract] is in support of this.”
Details of the latest KPMG contract are unclear, and the DTA did not respond to follow up questions about the reuse of digital capabilities program or contract deliverables.
Reuse of scalable platforms across government is a focus of the DTA’s refreshed Digital Transformation Strategy, which opened to consultation last year.
The contract was awarded through open tender was published publicly last Tuesday. It will see the work completed before the end of the financial year and before a looming cut to the agency’s budget.
Earlier this month the federal budget included a cut of about $90 million for the agency and a staff reduction from 255 to 227.
On Monday, DTA chief executive told Senate Estimates the slimmed down agency would shift away from service delivery and project management and instead focus on delivering whole-of-government advice and strategy.
Under Minister Stuart Robert, who was responsible for the DTA as Services Minister and in his new employment portfolio, the DTA has increased the amount of money it spends with tier one consultancy firms like KPMG, including a boom during the pandemic.
KPMG’s revenue from federal government contracts shot up more than 20 per cent last year to $247 million, according to an investigation of federal government tenders’ data by InnovationAus.com.
The consulting giant has landed a number of recent contracts with the DTA, winning contracts with the agency worth $1.365 million in the 2019-20 financial year.
Late last year KPMG was awarded a contract worth $580,000 with the DTA to provide “procurement strategy support”, along with a $1.5 million job to provide “subject matter expertise for transformation and improvement of government digital services”.
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