WA government seeks reimbursement from Deloitte over flawed university report

The Western Australian government has said it is “extremely disappointed” and is seeking an “expedited” cost recovery from the multinational consultancy firm Deloitte after errors were discovered in a report about a potential university merger, including AI-hallucinated references and hundreds of millions of dollars in cost discrepancies.

The Western Australia government paid Deloitte $166,000 for a feasibility study on merging the University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Murdoch University. Deloitte considered three merger options between the three universities, with “low”, “mid” and “high” cost scenarios, and broke down the calculations of those costs in the report’s appendix. Under the “high” cost scenario of a merger between Curtin and UWA, the report calculates the “total costs to day 1” as $514m, and “post day 1” over five years at $145m. The total cost of those two payments is $659m but the report wrote $399m – a $260m discrepancy.

Deloitte is already under pressure after it was revealed in the media this month that the same report contained hallucinated AI references, leading the state opposition to label it “AI slop”. The consultancy firm admits in its report it used generative AI to “support the collation of research, synthesis of information and editorial proofing” and had earlier dismissed the errors as “minor”.

A spokesperson for the WA government told Guardian Australia that the Department of Energy and Economic Diversification had written to Deloitte to expedite the cost recovery process for the report. Prof Stephen Bartos, an expert in public sector governance at the University of Canberra, said the errors discredited the report.