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Registration Terms and Conditions

Purpose

This guide outlines what you need to know when registering for the Digital Governance Program (DGP) for Senior Responsible Officials (SROs). It covers key details about attendance, payment, and what happens if your plans change.

By confirming your registration, you’re agreeing to these terms. If anything is unclear or you’d like to discuss your situation, please contact the Leadership Programs and Integration team at lpi@dta.gov.au.

Registration & Payment Terms

1. In-person delivery: The DGP is designed as a hands-on, immersive experience, including digital project governance board simulations. Attendance is in-person in Canberra over two full days. Travel and accommodation costs are the responsibility of your agency.
2. Registration Cost: The cost to attend is $4,500 per participant. GST is not applicable unless your attendance is funded by a non-Government entity, in which case 10% GST will be added.
3. Invoicing: Your agency will be invoiced after you attend. If you have a cost centre or purchase order number to include, or if you’d prefer the invoice go directly to your agency’s finance team, just email us at lpi@dta.gov.au.
   Changing Your Program Date, Cancelling, or Nominating a Replacement
4. We understand that plans can change. We aim to be flexible while maintaining the quality of the program experience for all participants.
5. Because the program is delivered to a small cohort, fixed costs—such as venue hire, facilitator fees, catering, staff travel, and other logistics—are shared across a limited number of attendees. We do not maintain a waitlist, so the likelihood of filling a spot vacated close to the program date is low. As a result, rescheduling or cancellation close to the program date incurs a fee to help cover these costs.

Rescheduling or Cancelling

6. If you need to reschedule or cancel your attendance and provide 21 or more calendar days’ notice, no fee will apply and no invoice will be issued.
7. If you need to reschedule or cancel within 21 days of your program start date, please email lpi@dta.gov.au as soon as possible.
8. If you reschedule within 21 days of your program start date, you will still be invoiced the full $4,500, and we will apply the appropriate credit to your next program date. If you cancel within 21 days of your program’s start date (e.g. due to leaving your agency), your agency will be invoiced only for the applicable fee based on your notice period.

9. The same fee and conditions apply for both rescheduling and cancellation within 21 days:

   Notice Period Before First Day of Program	Fee Applied	Credit Toward Future Program	Invoice Issued
   21+ days	N/A	N/A	No
   14–20 days	$1,000	$3,500	Yes
   7–13 days	$2,000	$2,500	Yes
   Less than 7 days	$4,500	$0	Yes

Nominating a Replacement

10. Instead of rescheduling or cancelling and incurring the associated fee, you may instead nominate a suitable replacement to attend in your place. Please email us at lpi@dta.gov.au at least 7 days before the start of the program. Please note that no substitutions within 7 days of the program start date will be permitted. Your replacement must also meet the program’s eligibility criteria. Please note that onboarding support (such as a pre-meeting with the facilitator) may not be available to your replacement.

Other Conditions

11. In the unlikely event that the DTA needs to reschedule the program, we’ll notify all confirmed and registered attendees as soon as possible. We’ll work with you to find a new date that suits your schedule. While we regret any additional costs this may cause, please note that the DTA is not responsible for covering these costs.
12. Photos and videos may be taken during the program and used in future marketing materials. If you prefer not to be photographed or have your image used in this way, please let us know in advance by emailing lpi@dta.gov.au.
     

Background and purpose

The Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) engages across the digital project lifecycle to support, advise and coordinate the government’s digital and ICT-enabled investments via the six states of the Investment Oversight Framework (IOF). 

State 4 (Assurance) of the IOF aims to provide assurance to government that approved digital projects are on-track to deliver expected outcomes and benefits – including by ensuring projects plan for and implement fit-for-purpose assurance activities to support good decision-making throughout delivery. 

The DTA engaged the John Grill Institute for Project Leadership at The University of Sydney to contribute to a research series aimed at eliciting best practice guidance to maximise the rate of digital project success. 

As the first topic in this series, this paper and the guidance within supports independent assurers tasked with assurance activities that review and assign Delivery Confidence Assessment (DCA) ratings for digital projects.

The primary purpose is to help improve the consistency and understanding of DCA ratings for digital projects. 

Specifically, this publication is intended to:

• Address the unique challenges and issues faced by digital projects.
• Outline inputs and focus areas that assurance reviewers could use to determine DCA ratings.
• Provide general tolerance levels for each rating category.
• Uplift capability and understanding of DCA ratings for the people who use them, including Senior Responsible Owners (SROs) and steering committees. 

The primary audience for this guidance consists of: 

• Departments and agencies (agencies) and Independent Assurance Providers (IAPs) engaged by agencies.
• Senior Responsible Officials (SROs) within agencies who are accountable for digital projects.
• Governance Boards and Steering Committees overseeing digital projects.
• Central agencies of the government (such as the DTA) who rely on DCAs to form advice to government.

Assurance Research Series: 01

What are Delivery Confidence Assessment (DCA) ratings and how are they used?

Delivery Confidence Assessment (DCA) ratings result from independent assurance activities that agencies conduct to assess the confidence level of the project delivering successfully. 

Assurance activities are defined as independent and objective assessments and evaluations undertaken by people and entities separate to the delivery team and the Senior Responsible Officer (SRO). While not every assurance activity will produce a DCA rating, every DCA rating will have an associated assurance activity that informs the rating.

The Assurance Framework for Digital and ICT Investments requires that regular assurance activities are conducted to produce a DCA. These ratings are crucial to provide an indication of an investment’s overall trajectory to deliver on intended outcomes and benefits. 

• The DTA draws heavily on assurance information to inform and focus its oversight and engagement across the portfolio of in-flight digital and ICT investments. These ratings also form a key input to the DTA’s advice and reporting to government.
• Consistency in how DCAs are defined is critical to the effectiveness of key decisions by project governance forums and to the DTA’s oversight and advice. 

Assurance activities that require the inclusion of a DCA rating in reports provided to the DTA must use the agreed ratings below, as seen in the Assurance Framework. They should also instil confidence the DCA rating being awarded is unbiased, rigorous and evidence based.

Procurement and contracts

In particular, the review identified the following improvement opportunities:

• Further value can be obtained in existing policies by negotiating adoption expectations in the head agreement, rather than devolving this responsibility to the buyer’s contract (e.g. CAIP Plans).
• Consider how to mitigate unintended market consequences in the existing Contract Limits and Review Policy to address unintended market outcomes.
• Define data and digital sovereignty with consideration of localisation requirements, and assess the technology landscape to identify technology necessitating stronger cyber and security requirements.
• Distinguish more clearly whole of Australian Government digital contracts from Coordinated Procurements within the Commonwealth Procurement Rules (CPRs).