An overhaul of how major infrastructure proposals are assessed will help to speed up decision making in the middle of a housing crisis.
A new framework governing the business case system will cut red tape, save money and get potential projects out of a clogged system and built faster.
NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey will today announce new rules which include:
- Developing a fast track for significant proposals in the fields of housing, health and energy infrastructure.
- Relaxing the criteria for when a business case is required, including:
- Increasing the threshold for a business case on recurrent proposals from $10 million to $20 million.
- Allowing lower-risk, lower-cost proposals (Tier 3 and 4) to have a lean business case or short-form assessment.
- Sharpening the purpose and content required in business cases.
- Supporting more work in-house to reduce overreliance on consultants.
These changes, if enacted five years ago, would have avoided the requirement to prepare more than 1,200 business cases.
The changes will return business cases to their primary purpose, which is to set out the evidence needed to inform government investment decisions.
For major projects, expensive and time-consuming work including detailed procurement plans, management plans and technical investigations will now be conducted following government approval for projects to proceed to this stage - instead of before, which could be a waste of money if the project is not approved.
In some of the worst examples of waste, the former government spent a combined $134 million on business cases to support buildings dams at Dungowan and Wyangala, which never stacked up from the earliest stages and were never built.
And in NSW schools, business cases for new school investment had been outsourced on a rolling contract, instead of the same straightfoward analysis being done in-house.
In the middle of a housing crisis and an energy transition, there is no time to waste.
These changes will help to streamline the business case system and ensure government can make timely decisions on projects that NSW needs into the future.
Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said:
"These reforms will see us continue to rely on thorough business cases for government decision making. But they'll be adjusted to ensure that we make the cases that need to be made.
"If these changes were in place 5 years ago, we could have avoided the requirement to create more than 1,200 business cases.
"Overall, these new rules should improve the efficiency, quality and cost of our decision making and ensure NSW builds the future people need."
