A consultant who won $8.5 million in contracts from the Canberra Institute of Technology was set to be handed work without an open tender process before territory procurement officials intervened.
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But even then the institute's chief executive, Leanne Cover, approved an unusually short open tender process that would have allowed other firms just seven days to bid for the work.
Patrick Hollingworth, a "complexity and systems thinker", was able to resubmit during this short window and won the contract, which continued his lucrative relationship with the CIT.
ACT Skills Minister Chris Steel has also sought advice on what power he has to take action in relation to the contracts, and is due to receive advice from the institute on Tuesday on what the latest contract is for.
Mr Hollingworth has been awarded six contracts by the CIT, with the most recent contract worth just $10 short of $5 million, the threshold that would have attracted greater government scrutiny.
Documents released under freedom of information laws also reveal Mr Hollingworth attended CIT board meetings on multiple occasions and highlighted the importance of "CIT's people coevolving and adapting together".
The ACT Opposition again sought to pressure the government over the use of Mr Hollingworth as a consultant at CIT in Legislative Assembly question time on Thursday.
Mr Steel, who on Wednesday tested positive for COVID-19, was unavailable to answer questions, so Chief Minister Andrew Barr took most of the queries - including a breakdown of travel expenses and a breakdown of the discussions Mr Steel had with CIT - on notice.
CIT board chair Craig Sloan, a partner at KPMG in Canberra, has previously told Mr Steel the contracts represented value for money.
Mr Hollingworth first began providing services to the Canberra Institute of Technology in 2017.
He gave a keynote speech to 500 CIT staff on February 1, 2017, before visiting the institute for three days - between July 19 and 21 that year - to meet the chief executive and staff to "help guide the transformation of CIT over the next 18 months".
He spoke about "managing a new level of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) affecting the world, and attitudes and methods CIT could adopt to emerge as a [vocational education and training] leader", the institute's 2017 annual report said.
The CIT paid Mr Hollingworth $86,280.58 on July 26, 2017 for consultancy services, the annual report that year said.
The institute then entered into a contract without an open tender process with Mr Hollingworth on July 27, 2018 for $198,000.
Another contract was signed with Redrouge Nominees Pty Ltd, wholly owned by Mr Hollingworth, for $1.22 million on November 9, 2018.
The institute's chief executive, Ms Cover, had signed off on a single-select procurement process for that contract in May 2018, which would have avoided a public tender process, but a senior executive within the institute sought advice from procurement officials in the ACT government.
Ms Cover then cancelled the private tender process and signed off on an indicative procurement timeline in July 2018 that would have allowed just seven businesses days for consultants to put forward proposals.
The ACT's procurement board repeatedly advised the CIT to ensure the contracts it signed with Mr Hollingworth were written in clear language and had well-defined key performance indicators, publicly released documents showed.
Partially redacted staff survey results from 2019 report there had been "vocal disagreement with [redacted] and other types of consultant expenditure".
The CIT also paid Mr Hollingworth $852,500 for one-on-one mentoring for Ms Cover, the chief executive.
Mr Steel faced and survived a no-confidence motion in the Assembly on Wednesday, which the opposition moved after Mr Steel revealed he knew about issues with the contracts in March 2021.
The Skills Minister has put the CIT on notice, calling on the board to explain what the most recent contracts were for and whether they presented value for public money. That advice is due on Tuesday.
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The most recent contract was unclear and appeared to have no clear deliverables, Professor Giles Hirst, an expert in the Australian National University's research school of management, said on Wednesday.
The contract required Mr Hollingworth's company Think Garden to "detect early/weak signals and build trends to improve products and services" and "establish and self-sustain practices that allow for iterative learning cycles".
The Canberra Institute of Technology was contacted for comment on Thursday, but a spokesman said the institute was unable to respond until Friday.
Mr Hollingworth was contacted for comment but has not responded to two enquiries from The Canberra Times.
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Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
