By Sarah McCrea
A report from the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) on the financial management of the ANU has found that the Council approved “the $250 million [Renew ANU] savings target without clear evidence it was needed, achievable, urgently required, or likely to have the intended impact”. The ANAO added “Council’s decision-making should have considered additional information, options, and perspectives”. All recommendations included in the report were accepted by the ANU.
Fieldwork of the report was completed between September 2025 and January 2026, with a proposed version produced to the ANU Council in March 2026 in order for the Council to offer a response to be included in the final version. On June 4, the report was tabled in Parliament.
The report stated Renew ANU was approved “without a clear understanding of the problem, the options available, implementation risks, or the expected impact of the program on the university’s purpose, financial sustainability, and people”. It had “delivered some savings, but with significant risks” at a total cost to the University of $35.9 million and ongoing concerns around people and revenue risks.
Regarding the conditions leading to the initiative, the report discussed the negative impact of COVID-19, with decreasing student numbers and unbalanced expenditure. Actions were taken after the pandemic to address this, but the report stated “as of December 2025, the ANU did not have assurance that arrangements were working as intended”. It claimed “quarterly reporting to Council and record keeping still rely on two unaudited measures”, as quarterly reporting and record keeping measures were focused on underlying operating result and management operating.
The report claimed that at the ANU, underlying operating result and management operating as measures of financial performance have “no independent audit or assurance” . For the underlying operating result, the “ANU has no methodology or process documentation to guide finance staff to complete this work consistently from year-to-year”, creating a “risk of a lack of consistency in calculations and usage”. These are the measures the quarterly reporting to Council relied upon.
Progressing to Renew ANU, the report claimed that at the time when the Council endorsed Renew ANU, they had “no clear evidence” that the savings target was “needed, achievable, urgently required, or likely to have the intended impact”.
“By December 2024, analysis showed $133.4 million potential savings could be achieved, but no adjustment to the savings target or timeline was considered or made.”
The justification for the target was from September 2023, when ANU executives and Council were told they wouldn’t be in a break-even financial result by 2026. In early 2024, the Council sought advice, and firm Nous Group were contracted at an original contract price of $48,000. The ANAO states that during this period, the financial reporting to the Council failed to “explain factors influencing the university’s financial sustainability”, “provide information about the university’s financial trajectory”, and “explain the basis for forecast scenarios, including assumptions, the basis for the assumptions, or the operational plans underpinning forecasts”.
In June 2024, the Council would raise the concerns they had about the University’s finances, measured by the underlying operating result.
The report added in mid-2024, the Finance Committee and Council decided on an operating margin equivalent to $250 million “to satisfy their understanding of S&P’s criteria to retain ANU’s AA+ [credit] rating”. However, “S&P’s risk assessment approach does not directly impose or require a fixed operating margin target.”
Renew ANU was approved by ANU Council in a meeting in early August 2024, originally with a savings target of $200 million proposed by former Vice-Chancellor Genevieve Bell, which was then increased to $250 million.
According to the report, “the approach discussed in the June 2024 meeting … had not been undertaken to inform the development of the $250 million annual, ongoing savings agreed by Council in August 2024”. It was stated that Renew ANU “only addressed one of the pressures and conditions faced by ANU between 2020 and 2024”.
“The Renew ANU decision-making process should have commissioned and drawn together all relevant information at the decision point, including additional options and perspectives.”
Prior news that dissent within the Council was silenced was reinforced. The ANAO was informed by Council members that in both 2024 and 2025, “debate was discouraged in Council meetings”. There was an indication of “a desire from some members to interrogate the evidence base and ensure outcomes were monitored”. In 2025, one Council member brought up worries of the ANU Council maintaining a line between “providing oversight of the university, versus support for management.” The resignations of Dr Liz Allen and Dr Francis Markham were additionally mentioned.
Further concerns about the effectiveness of non-Council bodies created to oversee Renew ANU were raised, with the report questioning the decision-making power of the Renew ANU Program Board.
The report concluded with discussing the ANU’s upcoming University Strategy, acknowledging that “If effectively implemented, these measures could address many of the financial management and university governance limitations identified in this report”.
The ANU’s response to the report was included in the final version, where the Council acknowledged it could have “more clearly articulated the problem, options, risks and impacts in a single, integrated narrative”.
It, however, did not “accept the characterisation that the Renew ANU savings target was approved without an understanding of the nature, scale or urgency of the financial challenge”. The Council said that Renew ANU was informed by “financial pressures” which had developed as identified since 2023, the “scale and trajectory” of which was clear by mid-2024.
The ANAO produced a response to the ANU’s response. It claimed the report shows that the Council would have been unable to properly rely on the financial information across time to inform Renew ANU. This is because “information provided lacked key elements, including feedback from meaningful consultation with staff and students, and analysis to demonstrate that the $250 million savings target was both necessary, and achievable.”
More to come.
Graphics by Shé Chani
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