Consultants working for the NSW government’s school building unit believed ICAC would “have a field day” with its staffing arrangements, the anti-corruption watchdog has heard.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption heard evidence on Thursday that employees from major consultancy firms were deeply embedded in School Infrastructure NSW after it was established, and that an official from the agency passed on details about a project bid by EY to one of its major rivals, PwC.
Former School Infrastructure NSW chief executive Anthony Manning; former PwC partner Amy Brown.Credit: Fairfax Media
ICAC’s investigation into the former School Infrastructure NSW chief executive Anthony Manning resumed on Thursday after a two-day hiatus caused by his decision to part ways with his barrister, Tim Hale, SC, because of what the inquiry has heard were “financial constraints”.
At the outset, ICAC commissioner Paul Lakatos, SC, confirmed he was resuming the probe despite the objections of Manning, who wanted the case delayed until his new legal team began on Monday. While Lakatos said it was “not ideal”, he questioned how Manning had run into financial constraints given ICAC is about a third of the way through its inquiry.
“The commission is left to wonder how this situation arose, given that the length of the hearing had been clearly indicated,” he said.
“The result has been entirely unsatisfactory from every perspective. Two days have been lost, and there is a possibility some witnesses have been recalled in the interests of procedural fairness.”
As the inquiry resumed on Thursday, it heard evidence that rival consultant firms were embedded within School Infrastructure, raising concerns about conflicts of interest even among those employees.
Emails between Amy Brown, the former Investment NSW secretary who worked as a partner at PwC from 2016 to 2018, and Jeremy Kurucz, an employee at the consultancy firm who became embedded in School Infrastructure as part of a tender in 2018, reveal they complained that staff from rival Johnstaff – a business consultancy – may have been blocking work.
“I’ve spoken to Treasury, who confirmed that they have been harassing SINSW to vary our original engagement [but] they have been sitting on their hands – particularly Sam Torres from Johnstaff,” she wrote, identifying an employee from the firm whom she said was also acting as the commercial executive director with School Infrastructure.
Kurucz replied: “Such a conflict to have someone from a consultancy in that commercial ED role – he should’ve just recruited an individual on contract.”
Brown said: “Exactly. Treasury are arguing they will have to be precluded to bid for certain roles … if this sort of thing continues. One of Anthony [Manning’s] closest friends owns Johnstaff (and is also one of the most incompetent people in human history) – ICAC would have a field day with this guy.”
Kurucz was embedded with School Infrastructure while working on a tender PwC had won. He joined the agency in 2018, and is now an acting deputy secretary in the Department of Education.
He gave evidence on Thursday that during his stint working for PwC from the School Infrastructure headquarters, an employee from the agency, Adam Smith, gave him documents from a bid made by rival firm EY, and told him to pass them to Brown.
“I remember sitting at the desk in School Infrastructure at the time, Mr Smith walked over and said ‘I’m going to give you a copy of EY’s proposal, for want of a better term ... send it to Ms Brown, you need to look at it’,” he said.
The document was a three-page “understanding of services” for a tender PwC had also bid for. The inquiry heard Kurucz sent the document on to Brown, but, he said, he did not have a “firm view” of why it had been passed to him.
“I was unsure about whether or not it was that, you know, there were things EY had captured well that we should be aware of,” he said. “I really wasn’t sure of the context. I didn’t form a clear view myself over time.”
In a statement to The Sydney Morning Herald, Brown said she had not requested the EY document, and found it “odd” that it had been passed on to her.
“As per Mr Kurucz’s evidence, I never requested to see a copy of EY’s unsuccessful tender document, and found it very odd that an extract of it was emailed to me at the time,” she said.
The inquiry has previously heard PwC was awarded millions of dollars in new contracts from School Infrastructure after Manning was appointed as its inaugural chief executive.
Brown, who previously worked with Manning on the Northern Beaches Hospital public-private partnership, suggested him for the role to then-education minister Rob Stokes. She helped Manning, whom she described as a business associate, by reviewing his CV before he applied for the job.
She is not a target of the investigation. ICAC is examining allegations Manning and others within the school building agency subverted recruitment practices, improperly awarded contracts and misallocated funds to favour friends and associates between 2017 and 2024.
The inquiry previously heard that within a few months of Manning’s appointment in June 2017, the new agency awarded PwC and another consultancy firm, Paxon Group, contracts worth millions of dollars.
Manning had worked with the chief executive director of Paxon, Michael Palassis, at his previous job with Health Infrastructure NSW.
On Thursday, Kurucz told the inquiry that when he was working on a joint tender bid between PwC and Paxon, he understood Palassis’ involvement to be related to a belief they would have a better chance of succeeding if he was involved.
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