Ninth quarterly update of icare's Improvement Program released
This update sets out Promontory Australia’s observations on icare’s progress in addressing the McDougall and GAC Recommendations during the period from 1 November 2023 to 30 January 2024.
icare continues to make significant progress on the completion of its Improvement Program, according to independent assurer Promontory Australia.
Promontory recognised that during the Reporting Period icare achieved a number of key milestones of the Improvement Program. This included Promontory’s assessment of a further 16 Recommendations as complete and effective in the period, taking the total number of Recommendations assessed as complete and effective to 64.
Promontory noted that icare had commenced or completed work on:
- the Design Phase for all Initiatives
- the Implement Phase for all Initiatives
- the Embed Phase for 97 percent of Initiatives.
Promontory noted the outcomes achieved in the two streams closed during the Reporting Period (Governance and Procurement Uplift), where icare has completed its delivery and Promontory completed its assurance.
In response to Promontory's previous observations to maintain focus and momentum to successfully close the Program, Promontory noted that icare had continued to focus on business ownership of improvements made to date as part of the transition to BAU.
The Report highlights the short runway to the completion of the Program, with the need to demonstrate effective embedment and potential challenges with regards to the more complex Initiatives in some of the remaining Streams. This includes the outstanding work in relation to icare's risk and control environment where Promontory noted the importance of icare remaining “vigilant” to ensure work is delivered both at quality and within the remaining timeframe.
Promontory noted that icare has improved reporting within governance forums regarding complaints management and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). icare has demonstrated a willingness to adjust timelines in order to achieve quality outcomes when implementing the new complaints module in the CRM system.
The Improvement Program was set up following recommendations that came out of the McDougall Review and the Governance, Accountability and Culture (GAC) review in early 2021.
Collectively, the reviews made a set of recommendations to strengthen icare's culture, governance and accountability framework, upgrade icare's risk awareness, risk management and risk capability, and bring about a greater focus on customer outcomes.
Promontory will continue to provide quarterly updates on icare's progress in executing the Improvement Program. These updates are published on this website.
