The Minister requested QAO consider conducting an audit of the Advance Queensland program. The Minister noted concerns about the program’s effectiveness, governance and value for money.
We responded to Minister on 9 July 2025.
We advised the Minister that we will obtain more information about the state’s funding arrangements and programs offered through Advance Queensland.
This will include making preliminary enquiries of the Department of Environment, Science, Tourism and Innovation to understand:
• the total funding allocated under programs and initiatives aligned to Advance Queensland
• accountability and governance arrangements over funding allocated through Advance Queensland
• how the department currently monitors the use of allocated funds by recipients.
In assessing the information obtained through our preliminary enquiries we will seek to identify:
• what the intended objectives and outcomes of the Advance Queensland programs are
• how the objectives and outcomes are agreed with funding recipients
• how the department assesses whether the identified objectives and outcomes of the programs are being achieved.
We will consider further actions once we have obtained and assessed this information.
Update – December 2025
In response to our preliminary enquiries, the department provided QAO with an overview of the budget for the program and information on current projects. They also referred us to publicly available information on the Advance Queensland website including macro-economic evaluations performed over the Advance Queensland program in 2019 and 2022.
We also identified that in July 2022 the original Advance Queensland program was relaunched as Advance Queensland - Innovation for a Future Economy 2022–2032 Roadmap.
Based on our review of the preliminary information, we have requested further detail from the department on the individual programs included under the original Advance Queensland framework, including the approved objectives and targets for measuring success of the programs; and how delivery of the programs was monitored.
We will consider further actions, including whether a more detailed performance audit is appropriate, once we have obtained and assessed this information.