Sunday marked two years since the ACT Integrity Commission made an extraordinary statement confirming it was investigating a series of contracts awarded by the Canberra Institute of Technology to a "complexity and systems thinker".
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At the time, many were hopeful the commission would deliver its findings quickly, indeed integrity commissioner Michael Adams KC thought the investigation would only take a matter of weeks.
"When it first came about ... I thought that, with adequate resources, we could knock that over in four to six weeks," he said in August 2022.
"That was absurdly optimistic."
It was indeed.
It would take the commission 542 business days to deliver its first report, following 37 private examinations, 92 hours of recordings and 1866 pages of transcripts.
That report found the institute's former chief executive, Leanne Cover, had engaged in "serious corrupt conduct" and had deliberately concealed information about the contracts from the institute's board.
The commission found her conduct had "badly affected the reputation of the CIT and led to substantial financial consequences".
While the commission has delivered its first findings, there is still a way to go. The investigation is ongoing with Adams hinting the commission was examining the documentation relating to the tender processes and contracts awarded to companies owned by Patrick Hollingworth.
The commissioner suggested in the report this was examining the scope of services from Hollingworth and how the value for money was assessed.
How the contracts came to the public's attention
Patrick Hollingworth is a self-described "complexity and systems thinker". He runs a management consultancy firm called Think Garden, which "helps organisations reconfigure their strategy, structure and culture through collections of interconnected and interdependent dynamics to ensure ongoing survival amidst the complexity of the 21st century".
Hollingworth is also a mentor and motivational speaker. In online videos of his talks he speaks about climbing Mount Everest and applies many lessons from mountaineering to the running of businesses.
He was first engaged by CIT in early-2017 as a keynote speaker at an annual staff development day. From there, Hollingworth and CIT would forge a partnership. Companies owned by him were engaged by the institute on at least five contracts over a five-year period with the contracts totalling more than $8.5 million.
Notes from the ACT government procurement board, which oversees tenders, showed a member had concerns the CIT was "captured by this vendor".
The most lucrative contract was signed in March 2022 for $4,999,990. The next month, on April 21, Think Garden was given a cheque for $1.7 million.
An Auditor-General report would later reveal CIT was offered a 12 per cent discount if they paid upfront for the contract. Think Garden had initially tendered a proposal for more than $5.6 million. It was much higher than the other two proposals from other companies of $805,183 and $1.97 million.
CIT originally wanted to proceed with the contract through a single-select procurement but were warned against this.
The contract required, among other things, 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 contract started to attract scrutiny from the ACT opposition on June 7, 2022. The Canberra Liberals seized the opportunity to use a scheduled sitting day to ask questions of Skills Minister Chris Steel.
Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee wanted to know why this was allowed to happen.
Steel and the CIT board
Steel was as baffled as anyone at the nearly $5 million contract. This was despite the fact he had previously raised concerns with the CIT board about contracts with Hollingworth.
He first wrote to the board in early-2021 following a media inquiry.
"I would appreciate advice on the processes that were undertaken to select Hollingworth and Redrouge, including advice on how these contracts represent value for money," Steel wrote.
This letter would form a key part of the commission's investigation.
Former CIT board chair Craig Sloan defended the contracts and the procurement processes at the time, saying the work helped the institute with its "Strategic Compass" which was "CIT's guiding approach to a whole-of-system transformation at CIT".
The commission's report showed Sloan had said he had made these assertions on what he had been told by Cover and the CIT executive team.
"At no point did he undertake an independent examination of the process, let alone the documents for himself," the integrity report said.
The commission found Sloan had not engaged in any corrupt conduct but that was a failure of proper process on his behalf in not bringing the matter to the wider board.
Steel claimed he was not satisfied with Sloan's explanation but this did not stop CIT, even despite a warning from Steel's former chief of staff in December 2021.
However, the contracts would not become controversial until mid-2022.
The contracts hit the media following the public airing of concerns from Lee on June 7, 2022.
This prompted Steel to send a letter to the board demanding an explanation.
"What justification is there for such a large quantum of funding, at $4.99 million, being used for change management services of this nature?," he wrote.
"I have reviewed the tender documentation and contract for this procurement and am unable to determine the specific work to be delivered through it, based on the use of jargon and an ill-defined statement of requirements."
This time Sloan did not defend the contract. He said the tender was undertaken by the chief executive and the board had no oversight. He said the board was not briefed on the evaluation process or the value of the contract.
The board could not guarantee the contract was value for money.
Steel was not impressed.
"I am disappointed the CIT board, by its own admission, was apparently unaware of such a significant contract and the financial implications," he wrote.
"The apparent lack of process and questioning by the CIT board of these contracts, even after I made my concerns clear last year, is unacceptable."
Notes from board members, included in the integrity report, showed board members were kept in the dark. Mr Black, a board member who has been given a pseudonym in the report, said he was not aware of Steel's February 2021 letter until June 2022.
"The first time I became aware of that [the minister's letter of February 2021 was round about 12 June 2022, was the first time I actually saw that correspondence," he said.
"It's very unusual for a minister to write to a board and, and if so, it's normally of great import and, as a board member, we would expect to see that letter and, and be involved in the response to that letter."
The integrity commission's continuing review
It turns out the corruption watchdog had been circling the matter for several months before it reached the public domain.
The ACT Integrity Commission received its first complaint about the contracts in November 2021.
On June 23, 2022, the commission announced its investigation. Cover was stood down as the institute's chief executive the same day.
Over the following two years the public would only hear small tidbits of information.
The commissioner announced the report was handed over to 35 interested parties in November. But it would be another seven months before it would become public.
This delay was due to the fact the commissioner found additional information earlier this year which resulted in a significant edit to the report.
This was presented to the ACT Supreme Court last week following an attempted injunction brought forward by Cover.
READ MORE:
- Steel says his actions held former CIT boss to account but Lee doesn't agree
- Babble and buzzwords: just what was the $8.5m 'thinker' selling?
- Who is Patrick Hollingworth?
- 'Profound breach of trust': CIT seeks legal advice to recover costs
- If this is seriously 'corrupt conduct', many federal bureaucrats should be worried
Lawyers for the former CEO alleged the publication of the report would breach the rules of procedural fairness and contained errors of law in "at least 11 respects".
But ACT Chief Justice Lucy McCallum found the commissioner had "gone further than required" in seeking to ensure procedural fairness, based on the Integrity Commission Act.
This included Cover being given multiple opportunities to comment, including on the altered version of the report.
Adams was due to hand over the report to Legislative Assembly Speaker Joy Burch on June 19 but this was brought to halt by Cover's legal challenge.
After the Chief Justice dismissed Cover's application, there was a further two-day injunction granted to give the former CEO an opportunity to appeal.
No appeal was forthcoming and the report was released late on June 27.
While the report's release closes one chapter it still leaves a series of lingering questions with the big question being why did Cover go to such great length's to ensure Hollingworth received such great sums?
Hopefully these answers will be forthcoming sooner rather than later.