The Role of Gateway Reviews in Effective Project Assurance

Observations

The OGC Gateway Process¹ was first adopted in Australia in 2006 and has been endorsed by the Australian Federal Government and a majority of State governments. This gateway review process provides a systematic framework designed to assess and enhance the capacity, performance, and governance of project and program delivery, primarily in the public sector. Since its emergence in the United Kingdom, the OGC Gateway Process has matured significantly, evolving into a refined and adaptable framework that is now utilised internationally to strengthen public sector performance, accountability, and governance.

Objectives of Gateway Reviews

The OGC Gateway Process is driven by several key objectives designed to foster project success. A primary aim is to provide Senior Responsible Owners (SROs), program and project teams, and commissioning departments with independent guidance and confidence regarding the project’s current status and its likelihood of successful delivery. This assurance helps confirm that the best available skills and experience are being deployed and that all stakeholders understand the project’s status and inherent issues.

Gateway reviews play a crucial role in identifying potential risks, critical issues, and areas that may require corrective action. Bringing these to the forefront, the review process enables project teams to concentrate their efforts on the aspects most crucial for success, thereby proactively managing and mitigating threats to delivery. Ultimately, the process is geared towards ensuring that programmes and projects achieve their stated objectives, deliver the intended benefits, and are completed on time and within budget. This involves verifying that the project contributes to wider organisational and public sector strategies and that realistic plans are in place for achieving and evaluating desired outcomes.

Principles of Gateway Reviews

The effectiveness and credibility of the OGC Gateway Process are built upon several fundamental principles. Independence is paramount, with review teams composed of experienced practitioners from outside the program or project, often including a blend of public and private sector expertise. This independence is crucial for ensuring an objective assessment, free from any internal biases or pressures that might exist within the project team or its immediate environment.

The Gateway Review is conducted on behalf of, and reports directly to, the Senior Responsible Owner (SRO), the individual who is ultimately accountable for the project’s success. This direct line of reporting ensures that the findings and recommendations are received by the person with the authority and responsibility to act upon them. Gateway review reports are treated as confidential to the SRO, which fosters an environment of openness and candour during the review process, encouraging interviewees to speak freely about challenges and concerns without fear of reprisal.

Reviews are inherently forward-looking, assessing the project’s readiness to progress to the next stage and focusing on what needs to be done to ensure future success, rather than conducting a detailed examination of past performance. The process emphasises a short and sharp peer review approach, where independent practitioners leverage their collective experience and expertise to offer guidance and challenge the robustness of plans and processes.

Gate Structure

The OGC Gateway Review process provides a framework for independent, expert scrutiny of programmes and projects at key decision points. These reviews are strategically timed to occur at critical decision points, or ‘Gates’, throughout the project’s lifecycle. While there are minor differences between state and federal government implementations in Australia, the core structure typically includes six gates:

The reviews are short, intensive assessments conducted by experienced, independent reviewers. They do not slow down project execution as they are strategically timed and typically span only three to five days, representing a low-cost intervention compared to the overall project investment.

State and Federal Government Approaches

The Australian Federal Government’s Gateway Review Process is administered by the Assurance Reviews Unit (ARU) within the Department of Finance. It employs a six-gate structure primarily for projects assessed as high risk that meet certain financial thresholds. The federal system integrates Gateway Reviews with other assurance mechanisms, such as Implementation Readiness Assessments, to avoid duplication of effort.

Queensland Government has robustly adopted the OGC Gateway model, making it a cornerstone of its assurance framework. Their approach features strong integration with the Project Assessment Framework (PAF)² and Business Case Development Framework (BCDF)³, ensuring cohesion across governance mechanisms. Queensland’s Gateway Unit within Queensland Treasury administers the entire process, maintaining a database of accredited reviewers and compiling lessons learned.

New South Wales Gateway Reviews are administered by Infrastructure NSW. Their framework explicitly incorporates other review types, such as Health Checks and Deep Dives, as part of a broader project assurance toolkit, applied with a focus on investments presenting the greatest risk profile.

Victoria has a Gateway Review process managed by the Gateway Unit within the Department of Treasury and Finance. Application is mandatory for all High Value High Risk investments, defined by specific criteria such as Total Estimated Investment thresholds and risk assessments.

Western Australia coordinates Gateway Reviews through the Department of Finance. A key feature is the mandatory requirement for a minimum of two Gateway reviews for eligible projects. One review is specifically conducted at the Business Case gate for infrastructure projects valued at $100 million and above, and ICT projects valued at $10 million and above.

Benefits of Gateway Reviews

Gateway reviews drive improved project performance through early identification of potential risks and systematic challenge of project plans, assumptions, and processes. The reviews strengthen governance, accountability, and stakeholder confidence by providing independent advice and assurance that supports informed decision-making at the highest levels. The process ensures all key stakeholders have a clearer understanding of the project’s current status, enhancing oversight and fostering greater confidence among those who commission, fund, and are affected by major public initiatives.

Gateway reviews optimise value for money and resource deployment by scrutinising business cases to confirm affordability and value for money, examining procurement strategies to ensure they achieve optimal commercial outcomes, and verifying that the best available skills are deployed on the programme or project. An evaluation of 400 gateway reviews conducted by the Victorian Government Resource Program (GRP) determined that the Victorian government could achieve a 22 per cent reduction in costs and a 29 per cent decrease in project timelines by utilising the OGC Gateway Review process for medium and high-risk projects.⁴

Beyond individual project benefits, the gateway process fosters cross-governmental capability enhancement and knowledge sharing. Central Gateway Units play a vital role in collating and disseminating lessons learned and best practices identified through numerous reviews, contributing to continuous improvement in project management maturity across the public sector. In its review of the Australian Government’s implementation of its gateway process, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) concluded that, overall, it “has been effectively implemented”. The report highlighted that in its first five years of operation, 150 gateway reviews had been completed across 46 high-risk projects, which had an aggregate estimated cost exceeding $17.6 billion at their commencement.⁵

Next Steps

1. Establish clear governance structures by identifying key stakeholders for major initiatives and creating or engaging with an appropriate governance review unit that can maintain reviewer expertise, oversee scheduling, and promote knowledge sharing across the organisation.
2. Integrate gateway reviews strategically into your project lifecycle management by identifying the most critical decision points where independent expert assessment would add maximum value. Ensure reviews are scheduled with sufficient lead time before these key decisions.
3. Build reviewer capability by identifying and training potential reviewers within your organisation who possess relevant expertise, while also establishing relationships with certified external experts who can provide truly independent perspectives. This creates a diverse reviewer pool that combines both internal organisational knowledge and external objectivity.

Footnotes

1. ‘Gateway Review Process – Improving Delivery Models’, PPIAF Global Infrastructure Hub, 2021.
2. ‘Project assessment framework’, Queensland Treasury, 2024.
3. ‘Business Case Development Framework’, State Development, Infrastructure and Planning, 2025.
4. ‘The past and the curious – what Victoria has learnt about delivering high risk projects’, ResearchGate, 2016.
5. ‘Administration of the Gateway Review Process’, Australian National Audit Office, 2012.