About this report or communique
Report of the Auditor-General No. 6 of 2023-24: Management of major office accommodation
The objective of this audit was to express an opinion on whether Treasury is efficiently, effectively, and economically managing major office accommodation.
The audit focused on Treasury’s role in centrally managing office accommodation and was limited to leases defined as ‘major office accommodation leases’. These are defined in the Treasurer’s Instructions C-2 (TI C-2) as leases for office accommodation that:
- comprise a net lettable area of 400m2 or more within the Hobart CBD
- comprise a net lettable area of 150m2 or more for all other areas in Tasmania.
TI C-2 states the size of the lease includes but is not limited to:
- any area, office accommodation, storage, or other related space
- all floors leased within a building regardless of whether they are subject to different lease arrangements
- multiple buildings on the same land title or conjoined titles, where the lease is effectively over one area.
TI C-2, and this audit, also excluded ancillary office accommodation attached to medical consulting suites and clinical facilities, hospitals, police and ambulance stations, electorate offices, schools, research establishments and laboratories, field stations, warehouses, storage and garaging facilities and shopfronts.
The audit also examined the sale of office accommodation managed by Treasury and owned by the Government within the last 5 years. We did not examine other property disposals, such as the disposal of schools, hospitals, laboratories, or parcels of Crown land.
The audit included engagement with a sample of agencies other than Treasury to support an overall assessment of the audit objective. These were the Department of State Growth, the Department of Health, and the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania. It also included engagement with the Office of the Crown Solicitor and the Office of the Valuer-General.
This audit’s scope was limited to the management activities related to office accommodation over the past 5 financial years, however earlier activities were considered as relevant background information.