Queensland Building and Construction Commission to ‘enhance flawed blueprint’

Insiders say millions of dollars have been wasted on consultants by Queensland’s building watchdog to boost a blueprint exposed in a damning review as flawed.

The state building watchdog board’s five-year strategic plan will be “enhanced” in the wake of serious failings exposed by the recently released Varghese Review.

Insiders are now questioning the Queensland Building and Construction Commission’s (QBCC) “wisdom” in awarding lucrative contracts to consultants recently which “could be seen to be boosting a flawed blueprint”.

Data obtained by the LNP show the watchdog in May 2021 awarded a $436,000 contract to Deloitte to work on “QBCC Next Normal”, with the same consultancy awarded another $380,000 two months later to work on a “future blueprint” project.

“Surely, a cloud hangs over that work because of the deficiencies uncovered by Dr Varghese,” an insider said.

“Once again, you’d have to be questioning the judgement of the QBCC board – who spend $1.5m on a glitzy new 12-month PR campaign telling Queenslanders ‘trust us, we know where we are doing’ – and outlay more than $800,000 in a few months asking consultants ‘where are we going?’.

Former senior bureaucrat Dr Jim Varghese’s review found the QBCC’s Strategic Plan 2020-2024 – which states its vision is to build trust and confidence in “all we do” – fails to “prescribe clear measurable outcomes which would support a process of continuous improvement”.

Dr Varghese said: “The plan’s performance measures are currently output-focused, meaning they measure the effort expelled to deliver services, but they do not measure the value of the effort.

Former senior bureaucrat Dr Jim Varghese. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

“The QBCC needs to transition into an outcomes-focused regulator, setting performance indicators that measure the impacts of its activities and its effectiveness in implementing government reforms.”

One of Dr Varghese’s 17 recommendations include realigning “the QBC Board strategic plan and supporting documents to reflect key outcomes” – which has already been “supported” by Public Works Minister Mick de Brenni.

In his report, Dr Varghese quoted an industry stakeholder who said: “industry stakeholders should be consulted as part of the QBCC strategic planning process to ensure that its strategic plan targets real industry challenges and is aimed at achieving a financially viable, robust, and best practice industry”.

Public Works Minister Mick de Brenni. Picture: Dan Peled

He said stakeholders, including peak industry associations, felt the QBCC strategic planning process “could be enhanced through better industry and QBCC employee engagement”.

In his report released on June 29, Dr Varghese found the organisational structure and processes of the embattled QBCC were not fit for purpose.

The review was announced by Mr de Brenni in November after a series of reports in The Courier-Mail exposed concerns over the QBCC’s culture, a lack of transparency around decision-making and accusations of ministerial intervention.

Dr Varghese’s recommendations include cutting the size of the QBCC board from 10 to seven and the Palaszczuk Government consider imposing a levy on medium and large construction firms to help pay for the expanding operations of the watchdog.