Queensland audit finds holes in $330 million industry grants program

The Industry Partnership Program (IPP) supports key industries such as critical minerals and biomedical manufacturing.

But in an October audit of the program, which ran in the four years to June 2025, the Queensland Audit Office (QAO) said while the IPP delivered on many goals, it could have done better in grants management, assessment, transparency and evaluation.

Among the adverse findings against the Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning were that:

• high value projects were approved outside the standard competitive assessment process
• the department provided only limited guidance about a 2023 revamp of assessment criteria, which made approvals harder to understand
• compliance checks weren’t adjusted for different projects, which created an unnecessary burden for grantees
• the department adopted a one-size-fits-all approach to risk assessment, which meant smaller businesses could have been unnecessarily excluded or rejected
• a monitoring and evaluation framework wasn’t developed at the start of the process, which made the impact of the programs hard to assess.

The QAO’s audit found that approving some large, high-value projects outside normal processes reduced the pool of funds for competitively assessed applications and compromised the fairness and consistency of the overall grants process. The QAO said the non-standard decisions raised integrity concerns, particularly given the absence of adequate documentation of how and why these exceptions were made.

The audit also noted that a risk register failed to include fraud concerns, or the risk of applications receiving funding from multiple government programs.

And the QAO report noted that the department relied on grant recipients to assess the outcomes of their projects, without checking on the accuracy of the underlying data or pulling it together to look for program trends.

The department accepted the QAO’s eight recommendations, which should in general terms:

• enhance risk planning and monitoring
• apply assessment and approval processes more consistently
• strengthen evaluation and reporting practices.

A senior manager at the QAO, Ashnil Prasad, published a blog post this month in which he argued that grants can “carry significant risks if they lack clear objectives, are overly complex, or do not have adequate oversight”.

He said the industry audit highlighted key insights that should apply to all government grantmakers “regardless of sector or funding type”.

He said grantmakers should:

• design grants with clear objectives and measurable outcomes
• align grant processes with program intent
• establish strong governance and clarity in decision-making
• manage risk and administration proportionately
• aim to publicly share program information.

More information

QAO Industry Partnership Program audit

Designing and delivering better grants programs (QAO blog)