Australian Taxation Office awards $30m contract to consultancy firm Accenture

Accenture has outbid other major consulting firms to secure the biggest per-annum contract awarded by the ATO since the Albanese government came to power in 2022.

A major consultancy firm will ­receive almost $30m in taxpayers’ money to provide services for the Australian Taxation Office’s Digital Identity program in one of the most lucrative contracts awarded since the Albanese ­government came to power.

The contract awarded to ­Accenture is the most attractive given out by the ATO since May 2022 on a per annum basis, with the Sydney-based firm receiving $560,000 per week for a total of $29.6m.

The agreement will expire at June 30, 2024.

Accenture will provide the ATO management support services in relation to its IT operations throughout that period.

An ATO spokesman said­ ­Accenture was selected to provide services to support its Digital Identify program, which allows smart device users to prove who you are when logging in to a range of government online services.

“Accenture was selected by the ATO following a competitive procurement process conducted in compliance with the Com­monwealth Procurement Rules and using the Department of Defence’s Information Communication Technology Provider Arrangement panel,” the spokesman said.

“Due to commercial confidentiality, the ATO is not able to provide further details about the level of interest from other suppliers,” the spokesman said.

Sources have told The Australian that competition for the sizeable contract was fierce with Accenture coming out on top after outbidding proposals from several major consultancy firms, including those from the big four.

Greens Senator Barbara ­Pocock, who has grilled consulting firms in recent months in her role on the Finance and Public Administration Committee, hit out at the lack of transparency surrounding the decision to award Accenture a sizeable $30m contract.

“If past contracts of this type are anything to go by, we will have little chance finding out what was delivered and whether it represents value for money,” she said.

“These big contracts and the firms undertaking them are opaque and the reporting obligations are often so weak that even the public servants who commission them are unclear as to who did what and how the money was actually spent.”

Senator Pocock said that over the past two decades, the Australian Public Service had been hollowed out to such an extent that much complex IT work is routinely outsourced to private firms whose “primary motive is to make as much profit as they can”.

“There is too little transfer of knowledge and development of public sector capability,” Senator Pocock said.

“We need to invest in the ­capacity of the APS to do this work in house, where it can be delivered in an efficient, effective manner, closely scrutinised by the department that has commissioned the work and where it will be accountable to the parliament,” she said.

Consultancy firms have come under spotlight from both politicians and the public in the wake of the PwC tax scandal earlier this year and wider concerns about the over-reliance on such firms by government departments.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese previously pledged to slash hundreds of millions of ­dollars spent on external advice.

This will include the creation of a new consulting team of 38 consultants housed inside the Australian Public Service.

Analysis of published contracts on AusTender shows that this particular contract had one of the highest weekly pay rates awarded to a consulting group since the government was elected in May 2022.

Accenture is a professional services group based in Dublin and specialises in IT services and consulting. It has more than 700,000 employees globally and its Australian operations are headquartered in Sydney.

The ATO has awarded $2.6bn, including the leasing of several ­office buildings, in contracts since the Albanese government was elected.

This has included $100m for five years to IBM for software and $33m for the 2023 financial year to Australia Post.

Major consulting firms have been subjected to a senate inquiry into their conduct by members of the Finance and Public Administration Committee.

The committee last week heard that from PwC chief executive Luke Sayers, who told the inquiry he was not aware of the confidentiality breaches relating to the ATO and leak of information to overseas clients.