NSW Procurement Policy

The objective of the NSW procurement policy is to ensure Government procurement activities achieve the best value for money in supporting the delivery of services.

TC 08/07 sets out the requirements for when preliminary and final business cases are required for proposals seeking capital funding. Agencies must to refer to this Treasury Circular early in the planning process to check relevant thresholds for preparing a business case, as well as for any updates.

As part of this Policy framework, the Treasury Circular NSW TC 08/07 Revised Project Size/Risk Thresholds for the Submission of Business Cases and Gateway Reports requires that all General Government agencies and Government businesses, including nominated State owned corporations (SOCs) are required to provide NSW Treasury with:

◼ A preliminary business case, which summarises the proposal at an early stage of development. The preliminary business case describes the high-level objectives, identifies alternatives and outlines the relevant risks, sustainability issues and costs and benefits relevant to these alternatives. Specific requirements to be provided in the preliminary business case are set out in Appendix 1.

◼ A final business case, which documents in detail the proposal. This includes an updated justification of the service rationale, costs, workplan and demonstration of value for money and the agency's capability to implement the service. Specific requirements to be provided in the final business case are set out in Appendix 2.

The amount of detail provided in either the preliminary or final business case should be appropriate to the proposed projects' scale, cost and risk.

Both the preliminary and the final business case templates must be followed for proposals submitted to Government for approval.

Preparation and submission of business cases should align with the timing of the NSW Budget process, as advised to agencies annually by Treasury. Business cases are submitted as part of the Total Asset Management (TAM) process as part of the yearly budget cycle. The timing of business case submissions in the Budget process is generally illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: State Infrastructure Strategy / Total Asset Management process for each financial year