Independent assurer Promontory Australia has issued a closure memo for NSW state insurer icare’s program to improve accountability, culture, performance and other areas.

The three-year program, which closed in June last year, was a response to the government-ordered McDougall review and a governance, accountability and culture review by PwC.

Promontory says the closure memo – the final report it is required to produce – covers three streams of work and eight recommendations that remained open following closure of the program.

“Following the program’s closure, icare extended Promontory’s engagement and we continued to provide assurance over the remaining work until all recommendations were assessed as complete and effective,” the memo says.

The extended time frame was not a reflection of the quality of work completed or the appropriateness of icare’s delivery approach, it adds.

“Rather, in line with Promontory’s feedback, icare made the decision to extend the program’s closure and prioritise completing the outstanding work to the required level of quality.”

Between August and December last year, icare regularly updated Promontory on its progress.

“icare also implemented an organisational restructure, with impacts to team structures and ownership and distribution of risks and controls across the organisation,” the memo says.

“Notwithstanding the challenges posed by this transition, icare remained committed to completing the outstanding work at the required level of quality.

“This demonstrates icare’s ability to stay the course, which will be important for ensuring sustainability in a changing environment.”

The memo says it is “essential that icare remains committed to sustaining momentum to maintain and improve upon the outcomes achieved. Ongoing vigilance, disciplined execution of established processes, and strong governance will be critical to ensuring that the reforms deliver lasting benefits.”

The state insurer’s interim CEO Stuart Farquharson said: “The completion of our … improvement program is a significant milestone and reflects the efforts of the icare team to keep improving icare to deliver better outcomes for the community.

“A continued focus on risk and governance ensures we have contemporary governance practices in place, supporting all our teams to manage risk and meet the expectations of the community.”

See the closure memo here.