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LINDA TIMOTHY:
Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our quarterly Corruption Prevention and Integrity Insights Forum. I'm Linda Timothy, Executive Director Prevention and Communication at IBAC. And I'm really pleased today to be facilitating this event. To begin today's event, I'd like to acknowledge and pay respect to the Traditional Custodians of the land that we are broadcasting from. I'm on the land of the Wurundjuri people of the Kulin nation, and I pay respect to their elders past and present and to any Aboriginal people joining us today. I also respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands and waterways across Victoria and pay respect to elders past, present and emerging. I'm delighted that so many of you could join us today. We've received over 450 registrations for this webinar and from agencies right across all parts of metropolitan and regional Victoria. And we welcome a large cohort from interstate as well. And a special welcome to those of you joining from our partner agencies within the Victorian integrity system as well as our interstate counterparts.

Thanks all of you, for joining us. Today's forum is about big projects and big risks. We're looking at corruption risks in major infrastructure projects and some ways to prevent and manage those risks. Victorian major infrastructure projects make up a complex sector that receives billions of taxpayer dollars each year. The 2022/23 Victorian state budget committed $3.5 billion to public transport services and infrastructure. These major projects face significant pressure to complete construction and provide essential buildings and services for Victorians. And last month IBAC released a research report into corruption risks associated with major transport infrastructure projects. In developing this report, we worked closely with the major Transport Infrastructure Authority to identify corruption risks as well as identify remedies and controls to help prevent corruption. What we learned can be applied beyond the transport sector, and there are valuable insights for anyone looking to prevent corruption in major projects.

So we hope that today's forum will offer all of you some practical strategies to identify corruption risks in your own projects to strengthen your existing systems and mitigate corruption risks to deliver projects with integrity. And today we're joined by speakers from both IBAC and the MTIA, who will share their insights from my research report, as well as practical strategies to prevent corruption. Our speakers today are Dan , senior strategic intelligence analyst from IBAC and the author of our research report and from the MTIA Sara McIvor, director of Program, Governance and Assurance. Josh Miller General Counsel. Tom McAvaney Director, Commercial, Legal and Governance at Rail Projects Victoria. Thanks to all of you for taking the time to be with us here today. But just a couple of things before I hand over to our first speaker. A few housekeeping matters. If you would like to turn live captions on, you can do so by clicking on captions in the meeting controls at the bottom of your desktop or if you're using a mobile device by clicking on settings in the Zoom app, then tapping meeting to turn on the captions.

You can turn on the Auslan interpreter by clicking the interpretation button at the bottom of the zoom screen as well. And if you're experiencing any technical difficulties, please first check that you've downloaded the latest version of Zoom. Now there will be an opportunity to ask questions during an audience Q&A session in the second half of this webinar. So if you could please submit any questions and comments you have throughout today's event by using the Q&A function, which you'll also see at the bottom of your screen. And as this webinar will last for approximately one hour, we will continue the conversation after the event by sending any relevant resources and answering any of the questions we weren't able to get to today. And just a reminder, please be aware that we're not able to answer any questions about ongoing investigations. And lastly, a recording of this webinar will be made available on the IBAC website in the coming weeks, and we'll also share the presentation slides.

So now just before I hand over to our first speaker, I'd like to play a video summary of our research report.

STEPHEN FARROW:
IBAC has released the research report on the corruption risks that impact major Victorian infrastructure projects during procurement and construction. In Victoria, major infrastructure projects make up a growing sector that receives billions of taxpayer dollars each year. It's also a sector where the impacts of corruption are higher due to the size, the complexity and the amount of money involved. IBAC's research focused on projects overseen by the major Transport Infrastructure Authority. These projects are being undertaken through the Victorian Government's multibillion-dollar big build initiative. Importantly, the report provides strategies on how organisations can detect and reduce the risk of corruption occurring. IBAC's research found that the key corruption risks impacting major transport infrastructure projects during procurement and construction are fraud, collusion and bribery during procurement, collusion and bribery by contractors and subcontractors, contractor and subcontractor fraud such as false invoicing and false claims and favouritism and fraudulent recruitment practices, including payroll fraud.

Significantly, our research also identified key corruption drivers in the sector. These are complex systems and processes and operating environments. High-level political performance and economic pressures to deliver and conflicts of interest resulting from a small number of major contractors and a shortage of technical experts. The Victorian community expects major infrastructure projects to have a high standard of integrity and to ensure that public funds are managed appropriately and that the risks of corruption and minimised. Here are a few prevention tips for people responsible for major infrastructure projects to consider. Corruption prevention starts with strong integrity frameworks and corruption controls. Ensure you have centralised and coordinated risk assessment, detection and prevention measures and data collection and analysis between projects. Share information between integrity officers and those who are responsible for leadership and governance to strengthen integrity, frameworks and corruption controls.

Consider using contract management frameworks such as Alliance Contracting to increase transparency, develop and uphold a culture of integrity and an awareness of the public sector standards among construction suppliers and across projects and mandate minimum contracting clauses that protect the public sector from corrupt practices and that drive and support ethical practices. IBAC will continue to work with organisations across the public sector to raise awareness of the risks highlighted in this report. I encourage anyone involved in delivering high-value, high-risk projects to visit our website and to read the research report in full.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
Well, I hope that was a useful introduction to the research report. And now, without any further ado, I'm delighted to introduce our first speaker, Dan, to provide us with some more detail about the insights the research provided. Dan works in our strategic intelligence team and he led the development of the research report. Over to you, Dan, and welcome.

DAN:
Thanks, Linda. And thanks, everyone, for joining us today. I just want to start with highlighting the fact that I'm about one author of this project and one part of this large organisation that has not only an investigative function, but a preventative function. And just to highlight some of that, we obviously have to keep some things secret in terms of sources, the protecting the investigation integrity, and to increase the chances of the investigation success in court. But we're also very open and very collaborative. And this whole report has actually been the product of some great engagement with the MTIA. (UNKNOWN). Part of our role in strategic intelligence is to examine the trends that we can observe in data and to try and look as far as we can beyond the horizon in terms of what might be the risks and drivers to come. So we've highlighted major infrastructure projects as part of our strategic focus, as you can see. Sorry about that. We've got six of those and one of those is major infrastructure projects.

So why was this scenario of interest? Well, obviously, everyone knows about the large amount of public money that's being spent in infrastructure projects. We're dealing with very complex systems within the MTIA. And importantly, it's a very close collaboration between the public and private sectors with a large amount of people coming from the private sector to work in the public sector and vice versa. We've also got a lot of different strings involved in terms of funding between state and federal departments. So basically what led to this report was engagement from the executive at the MTIA, which really appreciated the CO down. It's been a really good example of top-down leadership. We consulted with the project officers and the execs involved in those projects and we collaboratively put together a workshop to discuss some of those issues in more detail and that's been ongoing. We've had a lot of to and fro between the MTIA, which I'd really like to highlight as an example of the collaboration that we can partake in as IBAC with the departments and agencies and the VPS.

What we've observed, and this is a really quick snapshot of the cases involved in the sector is 26 cases not all have been substantiated, but they've highlighted some allegations. And as you can see there, a lot of them are related to favouritism as well as inaction and breach of professional boundaries. And the latter two relate to managers and public sector employees who are not doing enough to investigate complaints and allegations within their own purview or exceeding the professional boundaries that they've been entrusted with. A primary behaviour is apart from that. We can see that there's misuse of resources and collusion and bribery. None of this would be surprising to many of you who work in the integrity sector. I won't read out what's been already highlighted by our assistant commissioner. We've obviously got some very familiar risks there that have been highlighted in our previous reports. Perhaps one thing that I would highlight is the contractor and subcontractor fraud. One of the things that we really highlighted in the report was that there are tiers of contractors that cascade down to Tier three, Tier four in some cases.

What doesn't diminish, we want to emphasise is the responsibility to the public and that's the supplier code of conduct. You might have a primary contractor, but as you go down the list, that responsibility to be transparent and to work collaboratively with the public sector to make sure that the public interest is being served does not diminish. So that's something that we really like to highlight that the MTIA has done, that they've onboarded people from the private sector and underlined that importance of public service. Going back. We look at the drivers and again, I won't labour the point by reading in the verbatim. But what I could emphasize, perhaps, is the high level of political influence that we're aware of. We didn't focus on every aspect of projects... infrastructure projects. We focus specifically on delivery. But we are alive to the risks that are evident in the sort of boundaries between planning and delivery. And Auerbach has spoken at length regarding the influence, undue influence, I should say, on projects of these, these sizes.

And the conflicts of interest that can result, of course, between the number of contractors that we have and the transfer of people from both sectors. When we talk about corruption detection and prevention strategies. I think, again, a lot of you would be familiar with what we've highlighted in previous reports. I'd like to highlight the integrity framework reviews that IBAC has done in both 2015 and 2019, most recently. The first three are no surprise. In fact, all of them. We have to keep on emphasizing the fact that these drivers and risks keep on evolving. But the main things don't really. We just need to hammer home the point that we need to all collectively do this very well. What I would like to highlight perhaps, is the culture of integrity and awareness. What I will allude to later is the fact that we in many instances don't have a culture that makes people safe or aware of integrity standards. Again, I think the MTIA has quite a few good instances of how they educate their workforce, both from the public-private sector as well as the public sector about those requirements.

And in terms of mandating minimum contracting clauses, I think that's a really important point that we need to float the whole bunch of boats here and not just the public sector. We have an amazing opportunity to influence the standards and the behaviours that are evident in the private sector, knowing that many of those people will come and join us in the public sector afterwards. Red flags of corruption. Again, we published a recent Red Flags publication that you can refer to to get some more detail about this. Interestingly, we consulted with our ICAC NSW colleagues. You can follow the proceedings of Operation Hector, which has revealed collusion and other behaviours between public sector servants, public servants and contractors. So that's something. Individual behaviour like that, undeclared interests, close relationships with contractors. We keep seeing that again and again. And I would say don't wait for the red flags to come up. There are certainly new misses and the flags that are raised all the time, and it's our responsibility to be aware of those and to communicate those with our colleagues.

In terms of perceptions of corruption are also like to plug our recent perceptions of corruption report that we put out recently. And one interesting and concerning step from that is that among suppliers, there is still a concerning percentage that are not prepared to speak up about instances of corruption and fraud that they have observed. And that's a concerning fact because without a very safe, responsive and reporting culture, we'll continue to see that lack of engagement and we won't have the data that we need to analyse the trends and risks that concern us all. So I'd underline that fact that it's really developing a public sector culture that is welcoming of those reports by whistleblowers that we rely on. And to finish off, I'd say that information sharing is fundamental. This is a really good case of sharing what's been good practice by the MTIA. It's a bit of show and tell from them to follow, and I'd say that the resources that we put out are all there for you in terms of the red flags we have outlined.

But it's up to us collectively as the public sector to take those red flags and to add some context in detail, put it in your training, make it really contextual and relevant to newcomers and old hands alike. So without further ado, I'll pass it back to Linda and look forward to hearing from the MTIA. Thanks, Linda.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
Thanks, Dan. Some really important context and some interesting pointers as to where to find more information. So we've seen questions coming in, but please remember to keep submitting any questions you have for all of our speakers and we'll get to those after our next presentations from the MTIA. And so I would now like to introduce Sara McIvor, Tom McAvaney and Josh Miller from the major Transport Infrastructure Authority. They will provide some practical context for our discussions today by sharing information about the MTIA's governance and integrity frameworks. Sarah joined the MTIA nearly four years ago with over 25 years working in assurance, risk, compliance and governance across the public sector and private sector. She leads the Program Assurance Team at the MTIA with responsibility for the key assurance activities, including risk, audit and integrity. Tom McAvaney is the Director Commercial, Legal and Governance at Rail Projects Victoria. Tom joined Rail Projects Victoria four years ago with a background of nearly 20 years working in major projects and infrastructure.

He leads the legal, commercial and governance teams supporting the development, procurement and delivery of the Metro Tunnel Project, Melbourne Airport Rail and Regional Rail revival program as part of the big build. Josh Miller has been a practicing lawyer for over 20 years with his career spanning both the public and private sectors. He has worked widely across the transport portfolio, including at the Department of Transport, Public Transport Victoria and now at the MTIA where he's the general counsel. So welcome, Sara, Tom and Josh, and over to you.

SARA MCLVOR:
Thanks, Linda, for those introductions and thank you for asking us to be part of the webinar. And I'd like to talk to you first about the governance framework sorry, the governance framework at MTIA to support our program and particular focus on the integrity framework. Josh and Tom will talk about our construction contracts and our governance and assurance around our procurement, and they'll also provide some perspectives on the different project delivery models that MTIA currently use. I probably thought it'd be worth just giving you a little bit of an overview of the big build, as we call ourselves. It is the biggest sort of project transport project in Victoria's history. We've currently got about 165 projects. The estimated spend over the life of the big build is 90 billion up to date, and it's probably gone up since the slide was done. 190 million hours worked, which is very, very satisfying for us. And in 2022, our expenditure was around 9 billion. Just give you a bit of an overview on the governance structure.

Our minister, as you would probably realise, is Minister Allan. We are an administrative office of the Department of Transport and Planning and our sort of leadership is the Director General with four CEOs of the four project offices listed below on the slide. Probably worth giving you a little bit of overview on the projects. Rail Projects Victoria is the major rail projects for the tunnel, the Metro Tunnel, Melbourne Airport, Rail and also regional Rail Link. The level crossing removal project is the project office that's running the removal of the 100-plus level crossings. Major Roads Projects Victoria now includes the Westgate Tunnel project, so that leads the large roads projects. And then last but not least, the Northeast Link Project, which is the largest project that we're currently running, which is obviously the tunnels and the roads to join the northeast with the rest of Melbourne. In terms of our program assurance environment. This is laid out of the office of the Director General.

So we have a program assurance group which has an internal audit function, the strategic risk function and the integrity function. The oversight of that is by a program assurance, Risk and Integrity Committee, which is made up of independent members from MTIA. In addition, we are very keen on sharing learnings and sharing information across the MTIA. So there are what we have, what are called communities of practice. We have an assurance community of practice and a risk community of practice which very much focus on working with the management teams at the project office to ensure that we all understand what issues are occurring and how we manage them at an MTIA program level. The integrity framework which will focus on I. We sort of came up with the three key sort of goals of our framework. No. And that's about the staff understanding their obligations, complying with their obligations and complying with all relevant policies and procedures. Avoid. So putting their private interests to avoid putting their private interests before the public interest.

In Dan's presentation, he mentioned conflicts of interest. So that's a very important focus for us and our integrity framework and then report and again, sort of leveraging one more, Dan said. Obviously, we put a strong emphasis on our staff reporting breaches as part of our anti-corruption stance. The key elements of the framework, the culture. This is obviously very important to us and I think it's very important to emphasise the tone from the top. Our director general and our CEOs have delivered an integrity leadership statement with a strong focus on sort of reminding our staff of obligations and ensuring they understand that integrity is at the heart of what MTIA does. And that also aligns with the VPS code of conduct and sort of the public sector values. Training. We... apologies, training. We have spent a lot of time over the past few years developing some quite comprehensive integrity training. All staff, regardless of level, are required to complete that. There's an induction program which includes that as well.

And we also strongly emphasize annual refresher trainings. The other thing about the training is we have a strong emphasis on monitoring compliance with the training and ensuring that staff have completed the training on a timely basis. Within any organisation, your policies and procedures are fundamental. Some of the key ones that we consider very important from an integrity lens are our conflict of interest policy, our declaration of private interest processes, confidentiality agreements, gifts, benefits and hospitality declarations and relevant HR policies such as outside employment approval, misconduct and a very strong emphasis on employment pre-screening as part of our recruitment process. The tools and registers that we have, we have our integrity hotline. So we have a third-party hotline that anyone can make a declaration to. It can be anonymous. It can be people can be identified. It's really up to their choice. We monitor that on a regular basis. And obviously, we have a strong follow-up process.

We have online registers for gifts, benefits and hospitality for declaration of private interests, and we have for conflict of interest that ensures that we can look across the program and sort of identify any potential issues as they arrive. And we also have investigators that we can utilise at any stage when an incident may occur. And that's very important. So we can get them on the ground and get sort of any investigation that may be required going as quickly as possible. And the other thing that we've developed is we develop some data analytics programs, particularly around some suspicious transactions, looking at vendor master files, looking at employee bank accounts etc. So that's an important part of our sort of process to sort of identify any issues that may occur as promptly as possible. The final thing I'll talk about is our actual fraud and corruption control framework. And we sort of highlighted the key things within that role's responsibilities, the risk management process.

And again, that was mentioned, I think, by the Commissioner and his presentation, how important it is to be constantly aware of where the risks are arising. Identifying them, assessing them, and then developing sort of mitigations to try and manage the risks. The prevention piece, we've talked a lot about our framework and that's very much focused on prevention. It's talking about the leadership, our training, our policies and procedures, conflicts of interest and all of those areas. I think that's really important. The detection, the hotline, our data analytics program, our audits, you know, our audit focus is very much on the core risks. For example, we look at information security audits, we look at procurement audits, contract management. So those are very important in terms of a detection piece. And then the final point is the response. So we're very conscious that you need to respond quickly. And if there is any instance we triage, then we work up the level of investigation that's required and we respond very fast to that as part of our sort of oversight process.

So that's a very quick summary of the integrity framework, and I'll happily now pass over to Josh.

JOSH MILLER:
Thanks very much, Sara, and thanks, Linda and Dan, for the introductions. What we'd like to do next is just to provide a bridge between the MTIA integrity framework, which Sara has and very well described and between... and getting to then how does that apply on the ground? What does that mean in terms of our procurement and our project delivery approaches? And as Sara described, those elements of the framework that apply both internally, that is to our staff. But it's important to note that they also translate into approaches with our external parties as well, particularly our construction contractors. And I'd like to highlight the importance of culture that we've described, which we'll talk more about today, but the importance of setting the culture, cultural settings right and getting that tone right at the outset, because that has a very pervasive impact across the spectrum of parties who are involved in delivery of our projects. So this slide is really just to set some context and to provide a brief rundown of the types of contracts that we engage with across MTIA.

And the key point, I think, is that there are many different forms of contract that we use, contract models selected based on the nature of the project and the complexities and the risk profile that are that best suit the project to be delivered. But just briefly, from left to right and managing contractor model is used a lot for early work processes such as utilities, relocations and site preparation activities at the front end of a project before the major works packages kick-off. Design and construct contracts are used. We tend to use more collaborative forms of contracts, more so than design and construct, which are these days which design and construct contracts are very much a risk transfer type of contracts, as most people are probably aware, where the risk of delivery of the project is by and large transfer to the private sector for a fixed price. Our program delivery approach is an approach that we've developed for delivery of our major road projects through major road projects Victoria, and that involves a form of contract known as an incentivised target cost contract.

So essentially a target cost is set for delivery of the project with our contractor being incentivised to perform well and that those incentives relate to both performance in relation to cost, but also non-cost elements as well. For example, excellent safety and environmental performance. Alliance contracts are used broadly across the rail sector in particular, we find them very useful in a brownfields environment where there's many complexities and unknowns associated with delivery of the project that need to be collaboratively developed between the state and the contractor. So a core feature of this contract model is collaboration between the private sector and the state. And again, we use target costs for our alliance contracts with incentives for the contractor to perform and to come under that target cost and also to perform in relation to those non-cost elements as well that I mentioned, such as safety and environmental performance. And finally, public-private partnership contracts.

These are, as you can see on the slide, they're used for some of our larger contracts and packages of work. This involves the creation of a special-purpose vehicle between the state and the DNC, typically a DNC subcontractor, which provides an interface between the state and delivery on the ground. So a lot of different forms of contract, as I say, used depending on the specifics of the projects with which we're involved. I wanted to touch upon the next slide, which was around the governance and assurance frameworks for procurement that we engage. And the main point in in relation to this is that there are notwithstanding a multitude of different contract forms and contract models in play. They are all supported by extremely robust governance and assurance frameworks. These frameworks not only support the procurement and engagement of our contractors to deliver the works, but also importantly the ongoing delivery of the projects as well once the contracts are signed. So to call out some of the key features of these frameworks and we have an MTIA procurement framework which sets the rules and roles and responsibilities around procurement for our contracts.

There's ministerial directions which exist which apply across the whole of Victorian government, which do entail concepts of integrity within them as well. DTF-led High value, High-risk framework. These impose specific and more tailored arrangements in relation to product assurance. And they're supplemented by a gateway review process as well, which makes sure that it's certain stages across the project life cycle, that there are independent parties who come in to assure that the project is ready to progress to the next stage. Internally, we have multi-layered teams involving oversight of the procurement of our projects. So we've got evaluation teams who will review the bids when they come in. They are then supported by executive review teams who will review the evaluation team's work and plenty of involvement through our central agency and Department of Transport and Planning colleagues as well. Very rigorous processes apply in relation to evaluation, including in relation to pricing, scheduling value for money.

These are supported by both our internal teams and our external advisors. And finally, and really importantly, for the purposes of this discussion today, we have very heavy involvement from probity advisors and also probity auditors in relation to the processes which we run internally to reach our procurement outcomes. And they typically involve a sign-off at the end of the process to confirm that there's no probity or integrity issues that have been discovered throughout that procurement process. Now I'd like to pass on to Tom and to talk about some of the more on-the-ground observations based on our experiences at MTIA in relation to what we've been speaking about. (UNKNOWN).

TOM MCAVANEY:
Thanks, Josh. So I guess rounding out with what does this mean for us in delivery? So we've got robust frameworks, we've got robust contracts, as we've heard. Probably I guess the point though, is that when the rubber hits the road, what's important to the people. So it's important that both the project leadership at the client, the project client being the state and our contractors understand the frameworks, understand the contracts and lead from the top. So being accountable and aware of what we expect from an integrity perspective. I guess really pleasingly we've got a great relationship with our contractor set and that leadership is paramount and said from the director general. So I guess we've really been lucky to see or fortunate to see that in practice we get the results that we want from our contractors. When an issue does occur, we can get that transparent reporting, that proactive issue management. I guess the other point I was gonna make, just on the different contract forms, we do have multiple forms of contract in use and different contract models have different strengths, different benefits.

Probably we do see the need, particularly in the rail space, for the more collaborative contract models because they do a better job of managing the complex interfaces that we work in. And probably one of the benefits that they bring, and I think Stephen touched on it in his video, is the additional transparency that we get from the open-book arrangements that those alliance models generally deliver. So we get top to bottom, open-book transparency on pricing and delivery progress and really gives us an extra opportunity to understand what's going on on the ground. But I guess irrespective of the model we use and as I say, different contracts have different pros and some benefits probably we would say all the models incentivise our contractors to manage the risks in delivery well when they're set up to deliver a profitable outcome for the contractor, that means an efficient outcome in delivery and a close focus on managing all aspects of delivery. So we see the benefit of embedding collaborative behaviours to implement our fraud and corruption prevention framework in practice.

And we've been I guess as those practices develop, we've really been fortunate to see that that that has landed that strong leadership from our contractor cohort. So that was about what we wanted to cover.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
Well, thank you. Thank you all again, Sara, Tom and Josh, it's great to have some practical examples of what the MTIA is doing to prevent corruption and a big thank you again. We're very grateful to the MTIA for your cooperation in developing our research report into the corruption risks and major transport infrastructure. So now we've come to the Q&A part of the forum. Thanks to everybody who has submitted a question with their registration, but please do continue to submit questions via the Q&A function in the Zoom. And as I said before, we will try to answer as many as possible and keep our responses short. And there will be questions that unfortunately we won't get to. So look out for follow-up responses in the coming weeks. So I've got a few questions here. Maybe to Dan first or perhaps Dan and Sara, can you talk about how people can disclose corruption allegations and what happens to those?

DAN:
Sure. I would obviously, if I was an employee, obviously your PID coordinator is your first port of call. They have primary connections in your own organisation in terms of integrity and assurance. And obviously, we convene with them regularly in terms of helping them support their education function. So you are probably calling those, but as we all know, that the integrity system is wide, so there is no wrong door. Everything does come to us if it's pertinent to our scope of serious and systemic corruption. So I'm gonna add to that, Sara, perhaps from MTIA's perspective.

SARA MCLVOR:
Look, we have our as I said earlier, we've got the hotline and we do promote that quite strongly. Staff can come and talk to their senior management teams on any issues. And I and another, the Director of Integrity and myself are the PID coordinators across MTIA. So there's certainly enough information out there for staff to know who and when they can go to with any allegations. And I think the stop line's been a good addition to our toolkit in that respect.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
Yeah. Thank you. So this one is about conflict of interest then. So what? And one for Sara. What kind of tools do you use for detecting conflicts of interest in public procurement? And we've been asked specifically to use any AI artificial intelligence.

SARA MCLVOR:
Look, I think, as I said earlier, we do have some data analytics programs which I'll talk about as well. But as Tom mentioned in his presentation, there is a strong and Josh as well, there is a strong focus on probity in all procurement processes. And as I said earlier, we've got strong conflict of interest declaration requirements. So anybody who's involved in any procurement has to do a conflict of interest at all stages along the requirement, whether it's the evaluation, etc as well. And in addition, there's a probity adviser and also probity auditor on the majority of our large construction contracts. In terms of the artificial intelligence we do when we collect information on declarations of private interest and conflicts of interest, we can do some checking through employee bank accounts and whether it aligns with any vendors in our system. We also look potentially into assessing as to whether anybody's got some shareholdings or particular companies. So if there's any particular risk areas we've identified, we certainly have the tools to do that and we have done that and we will continue to do that because I think, as we've all agreed, the sort of integrity of the process of particularly around procurement, is very, very important to us at MTIA.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
Thanks, Sara. And we've got a few for Dan, but I'm just in the interest of sharing it around. I'm gonna go to Josh. For a multifaceted risk how do you determine the risk owner?

JOSH MILLER:
That's a really good question. And it goes to, I think, what Sara was speaking about in relation to our framework and the framework touches on predominantly it's predominantly internally focused. However, because of the ability that MTIA have and the important role in driving the culture of the delivery of our programme overall. And there's many thousands of people out there on-site delivering the projects. The tone is set from MTIA as the client in relation to these projects. So in terms of the risk, I would say it's a collective risk. We've got a really important part to play in setting the tone, setting that culture, setting the expectations around how important it is to minimise opportunities for fraud and corruption and behave in the most integrity, fulsome way. But then it's important that that flows through to the other parties as well who are involved in delivery. So overall, a collective risk we need to do and play a really important role as part of that need to make sure that those messages are adopted by our delivery partners as well.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
It's a complex one, but thank you. So, Dan, back to you. Does IBAC participate in any international networks and activities on this topic? And if we do, which forums are they?

DAN:
I guess our. Primary forms that we interact with. Probably are the interstate ones. Regular contact with our colleagues interstate. Internationally, we do make it a point to scan the horizon regularly. We've obviously had contact with UK agencies before. They've had their visits here as well. I wouldn't highlight any for this particular example. We did do a scan of international academic publications but probably would highlight the OECD. We're very well aware of their frameworks, the UN Transparency International we've had just before. I think anything that would come up, we would leap at the opportunity to interact, but nothing regularly comes to mind.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
And we're just constantly doing environmental scanning.

DAN:
Exactly.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
Yeah.

SARA MCLVOR:
If you don't mind, I'd like to say we at MTIA, we've spent a bit of time talking to our counterparts interstate, so I have regular meetings with transport for New South Wales, head of Assurance and Integrity and also with the Queensland Department of Transport as well. And to be honest with you, it's interesting, the risks are pretty similar across the jurisdictions. And everybody's aware, we are all doing very significant project work. So it's a really good opportunity for us to sort of leverage and just share ideas and share what they're experience as well. So I do think we really think that's a really important part of what we do as well.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
In network. It's important. Yeah. Thank you. Tom, we have one for you. How do you ensure stakeholders adhere to policies they know about? However, they look for loopholes and look to brush off the severity of what they've seen.

TOM MCAVANEY:
I think that comes back to the culture that we said we don't accept poor outcomes, we don't accept poor behaviours and it does come from a leadership tone setting. People will always look for ways around the rules and it's important that they understand that that's not the way we work. So we really do set a high standard in the way we do our work as well as what we do. I think that's the best way of demonstrating the behaviours we expect from our people and our contractors.

SARA MCLVOR:
And I think as Tom also said, we do have a very strong assurance around our projects, whether it's from within MTIA or whether it's broadly within the central agencies as well. And I think that's really important. And just again, sort of making people know that we are going to sort of confirm whether they are complying with the requirements or not and that they understand that it's a very important part of their responsibilities as a sort of a member of MTIA sort of family.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
Thank you. This is an interesting one for either Dan or Sara or anybody else who'd like to take it. But do corruption risks in major projects translate to national security risks?

DAN:
Can get the ball rolling. Interesting to see in today's comments. I think in terms of undue influence, that could be an interesting field because obviously we're dealing with contractors who have large networks overseas. And I think the whole idea of undue influence coming from abroad is not outlandish at all. I would certainly take sources from anywhere as it pertains to the Victorian public sector and infrastructure projects. So you potentially obviously, it's beyond our purview we would hand those issues regarding international security, the appropriate agencies. But in terms of public sector delivery and the use of public money in Victoria, the international sources are of interest.

JOSH MILLER:
I think that's right, Dan. I agree. I think it's just important to note in the MTIA context as well, these projects are so large and so complex and they do involve international parties as well, whether directly from international have Australian-based subsidiaries. So there is certainly a very sort of complex array of parties involved in the delivery of our projects. And that's why having I think that all-encompassing framework, which we've spoken about today, which applies to all parties that we're involved with equally, is a very strong way of sending that message to any parties that are involved and that we've got strong expectations in relation to how integrity is managed.

DAN:
Thank you. A bit of a change of topic now. One for Sara. You mentioned the third-party hotline. Could you talk to us a bit more about that and how it works?

SARA MCLVOR:
It's run by a third party, I think called Stop Line. I think Stop line is actually quite actively used across government agencies. So they offer a service whereby anybody can make a phone call, send an email or send a letter to the particular stop line details. They take down all the relevant details and then they pass it on directly to myself and my director of integrity. And then that's when we sort of bring in the fraud and corruption control framework that we have. So we triage the complaint or the of the allegation, and then we move to what we do with that, whether it's a full-blown investigation, whether it actually is an integrity matter in some cases, you may find that somebody sort of makes an allegation that somebody's been bullying them. And so on the face of it, that might seem HR But then you have to sort of ascertain what the nature of the bullying is and why the bullying may have occurred. So it may be a straightforward HR matter or it may be a bullying allegation because there's something that they don't want to do that's not necessarily appropriate.

So we do that triage process after we get the allegation from Stop line and the individual who makes the allegation can get information back from Stop line as to what's progressed with their complaint, if they'd like that. And we certainly would do that if that was part of the alleges requirements but it's well used across government and it's a pretty good service. So we're very happy to have it as part of our framework.

JOSH MILLER:
And Sarah might be worth mentioning as well how we publicise and make people aware of the availability of a Stop line through website, through putting posters up around our offices, site-based communications as well to make sure there's a really broad understanding across the delivery of our projects that this is an avenue which is available.

SARA MCLVOR:
And by that I mean Josh means that our contractors at the site offices can use the Stop line. They don't it doesn't have to be just MTIA employees.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
Now, that's an interesting point. Thank you. I've got another question here for anybody who wants to take it. Is decision-making exposed to a risk assessment process as well? And if yes, how does this work to detect covert collusion.

SARA MCLVOR:
Interesting question.

JOSH MILLER:
Happy to answer, I think. Yes, decision-making is subject to an assessment of the risk that's involved in that process. And it goes to the point that I was making earlier about the governance structures which are in place to oversee and manage the evaluation processes that we go through. So at a high level, that involves multiple levels of oversight in relation to decisions that are being made. So we have our evaluation teams, all of whom are required to sign declarations of private interests, and we have a review team which then reviews the material that's come to them. And we have our external or higher governance approvals through our director general and through government as well. Point being, I think a key point being that it's not within the purview of any one individual to make decisions. These are decisions that are made based on a whole lot of people's input, but importantly as well under the oversight of probity. So we have probity advisor who's there to answer any questions or concerns that might arise, as well as probity auditor who does an extra layer of overseeing the process and make sure that everything that we've said that we're gonna comply with from an evaluation point of view is being adhered to.

And the sign-offs that we get from our probity adviser and our probity auditor at the end of the process are really critical towards giving us comfort that the governance processes that have been documented and that we followed have been appropriately adhered to.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
Thank you. So we have another one here about supply chain risk management frameworks and whether there are any available that would detect foreign influence in program sponsorship and management. And the question is particularly focused on cybersecurity vulnerabilities. It's a tough one.

SARA MCLVOR:
This is an interesting one.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
Well, we can skip it. And I'll give you some thinking time. I'll give you some thinking time if for just one address to each of you, if there's one critical thing, one takeaway that you'd like us to take from today's session, what would it be?

TOM MCAVANEY:
I think I'd go further in terms of being prepared to speak up if people feel they need to. It's a safe environment. We've got the services and the support to provide that anonymous reporting because concerns are taken seriously.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
Thank you.

JOSH MILLER:
For me, and we've mentioned it many times already today, but it's the culture and setting the tone from the top. We've really got, as Tom mentioned, we're really fortunate to have senior management within MTIA, and this translates through to our construction partners as well. But a very focused on this. And when you get that tone set from the top, it makes a massive difference to those that are on the ground delivering the projects.

SARA MCLVOR:
I suppose if I go back to the private interest issue, I think we really need staff to understand their obligations in relation to declaring those, if in doubt, asking the question, "Oh, I've got this, does it impact what I'm trying to do or what I need to do?" And I think, again, the culture pieces are, the senior management group are very, very keen to get staff to understand their obligations. But I think the conflict of interest piece is a really, really important part of everything we do because if something goes wrong along the journey, then we're called out. And I think that's a really bad look for the MTIA.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
Dan, anything you'd like to add?

DAN:
Oh, look, I think firstly it's and we've talked at length about the culture. In the public sector, maybe influencing the private sector culture, those that work with us. I think that cannot be understated, certainly in terms of the frameworks that have been presented here that have been quite robust. But nothing's foolproof and it is an ongoing task to get to know our own internal cultures and to make them as safe as possible to enable whistleblowing where that needs to happen. So I think understanding your context is just primordial. You have a fluid workforce. It's changing all the time. People are changing sectors with your old timers, you need to leverage their influence and knowledge, but you also need to be aware that new people will come all the time. They need to be onboarded very well, robustly. We need to draw on lessons that have been learned internally to share that externally towards the broader public sector. All those things are important to not only know your culture, but to track it as a morphs and develops over time.

LINDA TIMOTHY:
Thank you. To such a big emphasis on culture, I can't tell you how often we hear it yet. Thank you. And thank you again, all of you, for your time today. And thank you, everyone, for joining us today. So, yes, a big thanks to Dan, Sara, Josh and Tom, and to all our organisers for your contribution to organising this webinar today and making it happen. And just before we wrap up a couple of last-minute comments from me, we will send you the links to the resources that were mentioned today throughout the session to the report and to other resources and a recording of today's webinar. So keep an eye out for that in your inbox. Also to stay updated on the latest publications and information from IBAC, you can subscribe to our E-Newsletter Insights or visit our website. We also regularly share updates on social media via Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. So check those out as well. And finally, as this webinar comes to an end and you exit the Zoom webinar, you will see a link to complete a short feedback survey.

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