Your resident services director receives monthly dashboards showing how many ratepayers signed up for a new community transport scheme. The numbers look solid because the contractor gets paid per registration, regardless of whether anyone actually uses the service after the first month.
Accountability rules require only that the program hit its enrolment target by quarter end. No clause demands follow-up data on trip frequency or whether the service reduced isolation for older residents in outer suburbs.
When usage drops, the vendor simply recruits more sign-ups through another flyer drop. The director ticks the participation box and moves the same budget line forward for the next financial year.
The gap widens because internal audit teams examine compliance with the original grant conditions, not whether the service altered any measurable resident outcome. External reviews arrive too late to change course.
Melbourne and regional Victorian councils run dozens of these programs simultaneously. Each one generates clean activity reports that protect the next funding round while real delivery problems stay buried under new registrations.
Shift the requirement to verified outcome data collected directly from users six months after launch. Tie a portion of vendor payment to that evidence instead of enrolment counts, and the incentive to paper over failure disappears.