Following delivery of the Review, a commitment was made to contract independent consultants by end of 2009, to assess the impact of the revised arrangements. The Terms of Reference (TOR) of the PRA were:
TOR 1. Assess whether and to what extent the recommendations of, and changes made throughout, the Review of Program Performance have been implemented.
TOR 2. Assess whether the changes made have contributed toward the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program meeting its targets within budget and within the program timetable.
TOR 3. Advise on additional issues for consideration that may further ensure delivery of the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program targets.
The consultants contracted to work in partnership to undertake the PRA were Dr Owen Donald and Julia Canty-Waldron. Dr Owen Donald is currently Chair of the National Housing Supply Council, Chair of Barwon Health, past Director of Housing in Victoria and past Executive Director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. Julia Canty-Waldron has over 15 years experience in service design, provision and evaluation, program management and policy analysis in the areas of homelessness and social housing and is currently on the board of Aboriginal Housing Victoria.
The NT Auditor-General, Frank McGuiness, also commenced an independent review of SIHIP in the latter part of 2009. The PRA consultants conferred with the Auditor-General at an early stage in the PRA about the scope and timing of the two exercises. It was accepted that some overlap was inevitable because both the PRA and the Auditor-General needed to deal with the translation of objectives into effective program, project and financial management processes that achieve the intended outcomes. However, while the PRA's focus has been on the period subsequent to the Review of Program Performance, the Auditor-General's review traverses the program since inception and focuses especially on financial management and systems of project control and accountability. The Auditor-General's report is expected to be tabled in May 2010.
It should be noted that the PRA has not undertaken a systematic analysis of the cost of SIHIP processes and outputs. This would have required resources and time beyond the scope of the PRA.
The PRA began in late December 2009 and concludes with completion of this report in early March 2010. The PRA process included scrutiny of past and current reports, policies, plans and briefings produced by the Australian and NT Governments. The PRA consultants have also examined considerable external relevant material which was both related to SIHIP and independent of SIHIP.
Interviews have been held with over sixty stakeholders, including Australian and NT Government staff on SIHIP teams and Remote Housing NT teams, Alliance Partners, community members who were part of local Housing Reference Groups, asset management officers, alliance builders on site, Shire (local government) representatives, NT Government regional managers, Australian Government Business Managers in remote NT, external experts in issues of remote design and functionality, external experts in alliancing, leaders of regional land councils, the NT Auditor General and the Office of the Coordinator-General for Remote Indigenous Services.
The PRA has also involved site-visits to Gunbalanya, Nguiu and Wadeye, which are remote townships in the northern part of the NT. In addition to meeting with traditional owners and builders working within SIHIP communities, these visits afforded the opportunity to view different construction methods used, inspect properties pre and post refurbishment and rebuild, view new houses on the verge of completion and better understand the impact of SIHIP in local communities. One example of the latter was in Wadeye, where Alliance Partners were utilising the local Indigenous tilt-slab concrete factory for a percentage of SIHIP new builds, thereby contributing to local economic activity beyond the direct effect of recruiting local labour for some of the housing construction work.
In the course of its work, the PRA has received an enormous amount of information from the government agencies involved and sought to verify assumptions and conclusions through examination of data and discussion with a wide variety of stakeholders. The consultants are grateful to all those who contributed, particularly officers in the Australian and NT Government agencies who responded willingly to many detailed requests for information and provided open access to program materials.