Northern Territory Auditor-General's Office, February 2023 Report to the Legislative Assembly
Tabled Paper 772
Tabled Papers for 14th Assembly 2020 -; Tabled Papers; ParliamentNT
2023-02-14
Tabled by the Speaker
Made available by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory under Standing Order 240. Where copyright subsists with a third party it remains with the original owner and permission may be required to reuse the material.
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Tabled papers
Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
Darwin
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Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C00042
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/898837
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/898851
Auditor-General for the Northern Territory February 2023 Report Page 81 of 131 Modular Housing cont There are current tenders in progress for a further 777 bedrooms with an expectation that 281 of these will be completed by June 2023. Specific to the modular housing component, DIPL had committed to the construction of 146 dwellings as at 31 March 2022 (comprising 572 bedrooms). Of these, 182 bedrooms were expected to be completed by 30 June 2022 and, of the existing commitments, 548 bedrooms were forecast to be completed by June 2023. There have been 1,379 bedrooms completed to 31 March 2022 for the whole program (being Homebuild NT, Room to Breathe, Modular Housing and Government Employee Housing). The budgeted formula (estimate) used for the previous prefabricated housing project in 2018 assumed a value per house (remote) of $470,000. Information received from the market in 2020 suggested an average cost of around $570,000 per house. The Approved Capital Works Plan for 2021-2022 shows NTG projects were budgeted at a rounded value of $500,000 per 3-bedroom dwelling. At a more granular level, budgetary information is based on $170,000 per bedroom. Management have advised that, to date, this value has been very close to actual costs however, due to factors associated with COVID-19 and material supply issues, significant cost increases will reduce the number of bedrooms able to be constructed within the existing funding budgets. Of the expectation of total bedrooms to be completed by June 2023, the amount which could be allocated as attributable to Australian Government funding under the partnership arrangements is 1,950 which means that the program is expected to meet the established targets. Management have advised they are seeking to negotiate extensions to the completion time and the available funding with the Australian Government. Delivery of the program has been delayed for various reasons. Since the inception of the program, global and national economic factors have put upward pressure on the prices of materials and the availability of resources, including labour. Given the target numbers of houses and bedrooms were determined by dividing the available funding by the estimated cost associated with the house/bedroom, recalculating those targets today would yield very different results. To accurately inform future stakeholder discussions and monitoring of program delivery, it would be prudent to develop an achievable and realistically costed forecast for completion of the remaining housing program together with explanations regarding influencing factors.