This page answers every question we get asked before someone books. What's included, what isn't, what five days actually means, what the refund covers, and what happens after the engagement closes. If something isn't answered here, the scoping call is 20 minutes and free.
The $6,500 package deploys two pre-configured compliance layers, populated with your data, during the five-day engagement. A third layer is added where your AI use triggers the mandatory AI Impact Assessment threshold — at no additional cost.
A board-ready AI Ethics and Usage Policy tailored to your organisation, aligned to Australia's National AI Plan, and structured for board sign-off. Includes your Privacy Act ADM disclosure position — documenting how automated decisions are made and notified to the people they affect. The policy comes with a multi-signatory sign-off workflow and an annual re-attestation trigger so it doesn't go stale.
Pre-structured and populated with your business's actual AI use. This is the evidence pack assessors score against in pre-qual.
If your AI use touches government projects, critical infrastructure assets, or decisions affecting your employees, the DTA AI Impact Assessment is required. Where that threshold is triggered, the AIIA app is added to the engagement at no additional cost. The app guides the full 12-section assessment, ingests your existing documentation, drafts answers traced to your own source passages, and produces a board- and tender-ready PDF. Australian-hosted, data never leaves the country.
The question that matters most
James Clements runs every engagement. Not a junior consultant. Not an offshore team. The configuration, the risk classification sessions, the data gathering, the review process, and the handover are all led by James directly.
Because the compliance system is pre-built to the NAIP standard. The structure, the registers, the templates and the export formats are all ready before the engagement starts. What you're paying for is configuration, data population, risk classification, and the advisory that steers every decision. Pre-built infrastructure means faster delivery at a fixed price — it doesn't mean less rigour.
One-off. The $6,500 covers the full engagement. After it closes, the system is yours. No ongoing licence fee, no retainer, no mandatory check-in. The registers are yours to maintain, the export pack is yours to reuse, and annual re-attestation is built in as a prompt, not a billable event.
The engagement covers Layers 1 and 2 as standard, and Layer 3 where triggered. It does not include Layer 4 (Full NAIP Coverage, Cascade Response Engine) or Layer 5 (TenderPulse), which are Prime Contractor-level systems. It also doesn't include ongoing consultancy, board presentation, or active tender support after the engagement closes — those are available separately.
Yes. Layers 1 and 2 from this engagement are the foundation of the Prime Track. If your scope changes or you move into Prime territory, the work already done carries forward. You don't rebuild from scratch.
Five days is the window from engagement start to output delivery. Day one covers AI use mapping and data gathering. Days two and three cover system configuration, register population, and risk classification. Day four covers review — your approval of every document and register entry before it goes live. Day five covers final export, tender response language, and handover.
It starts after the pre-engagement setup is complete. That means an initial session to map your AI tools, gather your existing documentation, and confirm your sector profile. If you have that information ready, setup takes less than a day. If you're starting from scratch with no existing records, it takes a little longer. The readiness audit removes this uncertainty if you want to know exactly what you're walking into.
Ideally: a list of AI tools your team uses across the business, any existing policies or documentation, your vendor contracts or service agreements for AI tools, and clarity on which sectors you work in and what projects you're tendering for. You don't need all of this to start, but the more you have, the faster day one moves.
It hasn't happened, but if the engagement runs longer than five days because of scope complexity or information gaps that weren't apparent at the start, we finish the work. The five-day commitment is the target, not a hard cutoff that leaves you with an incomplete system.
No. The compliance system is pre-configured infrastructure — live registers, version-controlled documents, structured export packs, and a compliance dashboard. The outputs are generated from the system, not assembled manually. What you maintain after the engagement is the system, not a pile of files.
The registers are designed for team maintenance without ongoing consultancy. Adding a new AI tool to the use case register takes minutes. Updating the vendor register when a contract changes is a straightforward entry. The annual re-attestation prompt tells you when to review and re-sign the policy. The export pack re-generates from current data. Your team doesn't need James to keep it current.
You update the relevant register entries and re-export the evidence pack. If a new AI tool is added, it goes into the use case register, gets risk-rated, and appears in the next export. If your scope changes in a way that triggers the AIIA threshold, the AIIA app can be added as a separate engagement. None of that requires rebuilding the foundation.
Yes. The system is tenant-isolated and encrypted. Your data is not shared, not used for training, and not accessible to other clients. The AIIA app is Australian-hosted on AWS Sydney. Full access and change logging is maintained throughout.
Yes. That's the point. The tender response language produced in Layer 2 is mapped to the five evidence pillars assessors score against across Australian heavy industry pre-qual. It's designed to be reused and adapted across bids, not written fresh for each one. Every time you use it, the evidence pack behind it is current because the system is maintained.
The tender response language is a foundation, not a constraint. If a specific principal asks for a format or evidence type that requires adjustment, that's a straightforward update. The Tender AI Response engagement ($2,750 where the system is in place) covers active tender situations where the principal's requirements need specific treatment.
The AI use mapping session on day one is specifically designed to surface this. Most businesses are using more AI than they think — shadow tools, vendor-embedded AI, AI-assisted features in standard software. The session maps it all, risk-rates it, and ensures the evidence pack covers what's actually happening, not just what was formally approved.
If an eligible tender bid is rejected solely on AI governance grounds after the compliance system is in place and the system's tender response language was used in the submission, you receive a refund of the engagement fee. This is not a blanket guarantee — it applies to specific, documented conditions:
The refund does not apply where AI governance was one of multiple scored gaps, or where the system's tender language was not used.
No. The system is built to the standard principals are scoring against. The refund exists as a confidence signal, not an expectation. If you're in a situation where you're genuinely at risk of rejection on AI governance grounds, the readiness audit first tells you exactly where the gaps are so they're closed before the submission goes in.
The refund applies to NAIP-aligned obligations. If a principal applies requirements that go significantly beyond the National AI Plan standard, that's a Tender AI Response situation — a specific engagement built around those requirements, not a standard system application.
Not mandatory. But recommended if you're not sure what's already happening with AI across your business, or if you want certainty about what the five-day engagement will involve before you commit. The audit costs $3,750 and tells you exactly what you're walking into. If you proceed to the compliance package, the audit work is not duplicated.
Yes, if you have a clear picture of your AI tools, your sector exposure, and your existing documentation. Most businesses that have thought about this question can go straight to the package. The scoping call covers this in 20 minutes.
Yes. Board presentation is available as an addition to the standard engagement where required. Scope and fee covered in the scoping call.
James is available for check-in sessions, tender support, and layer additions as your scope changes. None of that is mandatory, and none of it is bundled into the $6,500. You engage for what you need, when you need it.
No — start with the Readiness Audit ($3,750). It tells you exactly what you have and what you need before you spend money fixing the wrong things.
Yes — go straight to the Compliance System ($6,500). The scoping call confirms you're ready to start.
Go to Tender AI Response ($2,750 where a system is in place, $5,000 where a readiness audit is required first). The system can be built in parallel.
No obligation. If you walk away from the call and decide the timing isn't right, you'll still have a clearer picture of your NAIP obligations than when you started.