ICAC finds NSW schools building chief corrupt after $344m went to contract workers

The New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption has found that the man who ran the state's school building agency for almost seven years corrupted its recruitment and procurement processes to hand work to his friends. The report, Investigation into the conduct of the then chief executive of School Infrastructure NSW and others (Operation Landan), was furnished to the Parliament under section 74 of the Independent Commission Against Corruption Act 1988 and made public on 22 April 2026.

The Commission made findings of corrupt conduct against three people: Anthony Manning, chief executive of School Infrastructure NSW from June 2017 to February 2024; Martin Berry, a consultant and long standing friend of Mr Manning; and Wendy O'Brien, the agency's then human resources strategic advisor. Commissioner Paul Lakatos SC, who presided at the public inquiry, wrote that public money set aside to build and improve schools for NSW children was instead spent on jobs for friends and associates. He called it a clear case of cronyism.

The scale is documented rather than estimated. The Department of Education gave the Commission figures showing that between 1 April 2017 and 16 February 2024, School Infrastructure NSW engaged 1,448 contractors across 1,875 separate engagements at a total cost of $344,674,226.93. Twenty six of those roles were paid at the level of a departmental deputy secretary or above. One contractor, engaged through his own company as acting executive director for infrastructure planning, was paid $2,800 a day excluding GST, which the report calculates as roughly $644,000 a year against a public service band 2 salary range of $268,001 to $337,100.

The findings rest on sections 8 and 9 of the ICAC Act, which require both a partial or dishonest exercise of official functions and conduct that could constitute a criminal offence or reasonable grounds for dismissal. In one strand, the Commission found Mr Manning let Mr Berry draft the substantive scope of services for an investment assurance engagement that Mr Berry's company then tendered for, while other tenderers had no such opportunity and Mr Berry's involvement was neither disclosed nor managed. In another, Ms O'Brien was found to have arranged on or about 2 September 2022 for a creative firm to be blacklisted from further agency work.

The public inquiry began on 5 May 2025 and sat for 32 days, with evidence concluding on 25 June 2025 and 36 witnesses called. Behind it sat 90 notices requiring the production of documents, three search warrants, 15 compulsory examinations and interviews with 70 witnesses. The inquiry was reopened on 19 December 2025 after Mr Berry's counsel asked for a further opportunity to give evidence, a request the Commission accepted on procedural fairness grounds.

The report records disagreement that it does not fully resolve. Mr Manning submitted that he neither requested nor received any financial benefit, and that everyone engaged was experienced and a leader in their field. The Commission accepted the first point, noting that Counsel Assisting never alleged he took a financial benefit. It rejected the second as an answer, holding that assessments of competence must be made by a fair and transparent process rather than by a decision maker with a conflict of interest. On value for money the Commission is candid about the limits of what it established: the evidence does not suggest the contingent workers failed to provide a service, and what is generally not known is whether existing staff could have done the work, or done it for less.

The report is also critical of oversight above Mr Manning. It found that Mark Scott, secretary of the Department of Education when Mr Manning was appointed, failed to heed warnings about Mr Manning's practices and did not act on warning signs raised with him by senior departmental staff, and that his successor Georgina Harrisson missed opportunities to detect the behaviour. Mr Scott received the Commission's corruption prevention submissions and elected not to respond. Neither was the subject of a corrupt conduct finding.

On the day of release the Deputy Premier and Minister for Education said the findings highlighted leadership failures under the former government and that families in fast growing suburbs had been ignored while school planning was mismanaged. The current departmental secretary, Murat Dizdar PSM, told the Commission the contingent share of the agency's workforce had fallen from 49 per cent in April 2023 to 17 per cent in May 2025. The Commission made 16 corruption prevention recommendations, including one that the department's chief audit executive review the fix, but not before December 2027.

What is not settled is whether any of this becomes a criminal matter. Findings of corrupt conduct are not convictions. The Commission provided briefs of evidence to the Director of Public Prosecutions on 21 May 2026 on misconduct in public office offences for Mr Manning and Mr Berry, and on 29 June 2026 sent further briefs concerning alleged false or misleading evidence and, for Ms O'Brien, alleged destruction of information. As at the Commission's most recent public update, no decision on prosecution had been announced.