Hospitality and other gifts from ICT suppliers to Australian public service (APS) officials will be catalogued and audited quarterly from 1 April, the Department of Finance has announced amidst a crackdown on the “cultivation” of officials for favourable treatment.

The new policy – which is contained in the government’s response to June’s final report of the Parliamentary Inquiry into Procurement at Services Australia and the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) – will see the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) scouring agency records for gifts from ICT companies.

The DTA will focus on gifts and benefits from ICT suppliers that either have a whole-of-government arrangement with the Commonwealth – this includes IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) – or a model contract under a DTA BuyICT panel arrangement.

New rules for ICT suppliers

ICT suppliers will be required to give the DTA a quarterly record of all gifts offered to, and accepted by, APS officers through 31 March 2026 – with those disclosures to be compared with the DTA’s own reviews to ensure all potentially problematic gifts have been disclosed.

The move – which comes after the inquiry’s report warned that “inappropriate cultivation of Commonwealth officials may be occurring as a result of hospitality and gifts by major ICT vendors” – is part of a broader review of gifts and benefits (G&B) policy across the APS.

Although agency heads are allowed to write their own G&B policies, they are “strongly encouraged” to follow the APS Commission’s Guidance for Agency Heads – Gifts and Benefits, which requires public disclosure of any gifts and benefits valued at over $100.

That guidance, which was last updated in December 2021, will be updated by mid-year as the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (JCPAA)-led inquiry expands mandatory declaration requirements and strengthens reporting obligations beyond agency heads.

The action comes months after last July’s Commonwealth Supplier Code of Conduct set minimum expectations of suppliers and subcontractors in areas such as ethical behaviour; corporate governance; business practices; and health, safety, and employee welfare.

“The Commonwealth expects its suppliers to consistently act with integrity and accountability,” Department of Finance secretary Jenny Wilkinson said in reiterating expectations that suppliers “take reasonable steps” to avoid conflicts of interest.

ICT inducements under the microscope

The crackdown comes in the wake of a scandal involving ICT giant Salesforce, which was last year found to have plied NDIA officials with over 100 gifts – including meals, drinks, and golf days – before winning a $27 million NDIA contract that grew to $135 million with extensions.

“Clear breaches” of NDIA’s gifts and hospitality policies – which JCPAA chair Julian Hill said prohibited officials from accepting gifts “that could be seen to compromise their integrity” – emerged after Salesforce documented gifts that NDIA staff failed to declare.

That discovery, the JCPAA report found, “raises concerns regarding potential systemic inappropriate cultivation of Commonwealth officials by Salesforce over a long period of time…. Probity demands careful handling to… avoid the perception of ‘capture’ or bias.”

“The Committee is concerned to understand whether these practices may be more widespread across the public sector including by other major ICT vendors [and suggests] a broader examination of these issues in relation to a selection of major ICT vendors.”

That investigation also identified inadequately documented meetings between Salesforce, Synergy 360 and responsible minister Stuart Robert, as well as “a number of deficiencies in NDIA’s procurement management” that led the agency to review its own policies.

With billions in contracts often at stake, corruption remains a problem within some circles of the ICT industry, with a former Commonwealth Bank of Australia executive imprisoned for over six years in October for accepting $3 million in kickbacks related to ICT contracts.

“Integrity is deeply important to our work in the public service,” Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Professor Glyn Davis recently reminded APS staff.

“It underpins the trust of the Australian public, who rely on us to serve their interests.”