Not all Australian Government projects will undertake Gateway. Gateway only applies to new projects conducted by FMA agencies, which satisfy certain financial and risk thresholds and which are being submitted to Cabinet for approval.
The current financial thresholds are:
$10M and above for Information Technology (IT) projects; and
$20M and above for other procurement and infrastructure projects
These costs are calculated over the life of the project (not just in one financial year) and include capital and operating expenses. These different financial thresholds were set based on the research and experience of FMA agencies, which established that there is generally a higher risk for IT projects than for other projects. The financial thresholds will be reviewed from time to time to ensure their appropriateness.
The second criterion, risk, is determined using the GAT. FMA agencies seeking Cabinet approval for projects costed in excess of the financial thresholds are required to submit a completed GAT to the Gateway Unit before the consideration of the project by Cabinet.
The GAT is a high level assessment tool that is designed to identify the indicative level of risk for a project. It provides a set of criteria against which an agency can assess the characteristics and degree of complexity of a proposed project, in order to develop an overall indicative risk rating. The risk rating is then confirmed in discussions with the Gateway Unit. The questions in the GAT allow for the provision of a written explanation for each of the responses to help inform the Gateway Unit in assessing the overall project risk.
As part of the phased implementation of Gateway, during the 2006-07 Budget process projects meeting the financial thresholds were required to complete the GAT. The Prime Minister and the Minister for Finance and Administration subsequently agreed to five projects undertaking Gateway. These five projects represent a cross section of projects of differing financial values and from both the ICT and infrastructure classifications.
Since May 2006, all projects meeting the financial thresholds and assessed as high risk are required to undertake the Gateway Review Process, if the project is approved by Cabinet. All projects assessed as high risk must have their Gate 1 Business Case Review scheduled prior to Cabinet considering the proposal. Commencing with the 2008-09 Budget process the risk threshold will be extended to include medium risk as well as high risk projects.
A subset of high risk projects have been defined by the Government as ‘Mission Critical’, and as such, the Government has decided that additional governance requirements be applied to these projects, on the basis that:
such projects are essential to the successful delivery of a major legislative requirement or a major policy initiative committed to by the Government; or
project failure would have catastrophic implications for delivery of a key public service, national security or the internal operation of an agency.
The classification of projects as ‘Mission Critical’ is expected to be rare.