Gun Buy Back Scheme - The Australian National Audit Office

Unless the creative strategy should prove very successful, it is unlikely
that the media strategy as submitted would be able to deliver an
advertising campaign of effective impact.’
3 151 The preliminary assessment also highlighted shortcomings in three
of the other proposals but did not make a specific recommendation,
other than identifying one of the proposals as being ‘the one that
most closely responds to the brief given’. In spite of general
congruence between the OGIA and the Attorney-General's
Department assessments that one of the agencies was the best of
the submissions, the ANAO found no evidence to indicate that
OGIA had sought comments from the Attorney-General's
Department on the more comprehensive assessment against the
selection criteria which OGIA submitted to the MCGC.
3 152 The Attorney-General’s Department had also prepared an
assessment in the form of a brief to the Attorney-General in
preparation for the MCGC meeting. This was not made available
to OGIA. It advised the Attorney-General that:
‘Given the research findings, it is our view that the best result would be
to appoint …… as the campaign advertising agency. To do otherwise
would jeopardise the integrity, reach and impact of the campaign.
Appointing either of the other two agencies could lead to failure of the
amnesty. The risk would be that the campaign itself would become
controversial and engender hostility against the Government.’
3 153 The final assessment which OGIA submitted to the MCGC was
more comprehensive and assessed each proposal against the
predetermined selection criteria. The ANAO considers that,
although OGIA’s written assessment may not have reflected the
strength of the views of the client department noted above, it did
appear reasonable and objective in its evaluation of the proposals
against the selection criteria. However, it did not attempt to rank
the proposals in order of merit. Although not required by the
relevant procedural guidelines, such ranking may help to ensure
efficiency in the selection of a replacement agency should the first
choice drop out because of conflict of interest, financial insolvency
or for any other reason.
3 154 The ANAO found no evidence of adequate consultation between
OGIA and the Attorney-General's Department and concludes that
there was scope for OGIA to ensure that the written assessments
submitted to the MCGC more closely reflected the opinion of the
client department.
76 The Gun Buy-Back Scheme