Public sector · government, civic, health, education
AI is entering public services. Does it land for the public it serves?
Divergent Kind is a principal-led Australian SME practising operating model design, service design and research, change, and AI adoption advisory. We help agencies redesign how decisions, services and teams work – and we bring a ready qualitative method for assessing the human impact of AI adoption, at the moment that assessment became mandatory.
Why now
The assessment your agency now has to run.
Human-impact assessment of AI is no longer good practice – it is policy, with dates attached. Most agencies must produce artefacts they have never produced before, on a deadline, this calendar year.
Policy v2.0 is in effect, with requirements phasing in through 2026. By 15 December 2026, in-scope AI use cases require pre-deployment impact assessment – and every non-corporate entity needs adoption plans, AI use-case registers, accountable officials, pre-deployment AI impact assessments, incident processes and staff training.¹
The NSW AIAF applies to all agency use of AI, including procurement – and supplier responses are evaluated on their ability to manage AIAF-identified risks.²
What we do for agencies
Three engagements. Each ends with the capability in your hands.
The outcome we sell is the one that survives our departure: the change holds, your team runs the method, and the dependency never forms. Capability transfer isn’t a clause – it’s the deliverable.
A four-to-six-week facilitated engagement: we run your pre-deployment AI impact assessments with your people, stand up the use-case register, and hand over the method so your team runs the next round without us. Aligned to the Commonwealth policy toolkit and the NSW AIAF.
Time-bound · capability transferred · Strategic-Commissioning-aligned
Operating model review and redesign, decision-rights and delegation mapping, organisational diagnostics. We map how decisions actually flow – not how the org chart says they do – and redesign the structure around the work.
Diagnostics · governance design · transition architecture
Human-centred, inclusive service design and evaluative user research – including services that work for cognitively diverse users – with a structured qualitative indicator framework measuring agency, reciprocity, alignment and signal integrity: the organisational health signals conventional KPIs miss.
Research · co-design · qualitative evaluation
Procurement, made simple
You can engage us directly. Here’s the rule that says so.
Most engagements in this category are small and direct – the median consultancy contract runs under $100k, and 87% sit under $200k.³ The SME provisions exist for exactly this work:
Agencies may engage an SME directly up to $500,000 (GST inclusive) without an open tender, subject to value for money – CPR Appendix A, Exemption 17.⁴
Below the procurement threshold no open tender is required, and SME-only approaches are encouraged under CPR 5.5.⁴
Even MAS-mandated agencies may spend the greater of $50k or 5% of annual consultancy spend off-panel – explicitly for new entrants and specialist SMEs.⁴
Agencies may directly negotiate with an SME up to $250,000 under PBD-2023-03, including where mandated arrangements exist.⁵
Registrations across federal, NSW and VIC channels are in progress – and none are required to engage us directly under the provisions above. Current status on request.
Why agencies choose a specialist
Built for the way government buys now.
- Government context is not new to us. The principal’s record includes work with Austrade – the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, June 2019 to March 2020 – alongside two decades of design, product and operating-model leadership at Apple, Qantas, Virgin Australia, Jetstar, NAB, Bupa, Lexus and Xero (via the NAB Innovation Lab), and not-for-profit work with Who Gives A Crap. (The founder’s professional record; listed organisations are not clients or endorsers of Divergent Kind Pty Ltd.)
- Insourcing-aligned, by design. Engagements are specialist, time-bound and independent, with capability transfer built in – consistent with the APS Strategic Commissioning Framework and the NSW Core Work policy. Your team runs the method after we leave.
- Principal-level delivery at SME rates. The person who scopes the engagement delivers it. No leverage pyramid, no juniors learning on your time – supported by an established network of specialist associates.
- A method, not a deck. The qualitative indicator framework reads the four conditions that decide whether a system serves the people in it and the people it is for: agency, reciprocity, alignment, signal integrity. The civic register of that method is open and freely citable – the Civic Coherence Lens.
- AI advice grounded in practice. We use AI-assisted methods in our own delivery under disclosed, human-accountable controls – and help agencies set the same standard for theirs.
- SME procurement targets work in your favour. The Commonwealth targets 25% of procurement by value to SMEs, and 40% for contracts under $20m.⁴ Engaging a credible specialist SME is policy-aligned, not policy-exceptional.
Divergent Kind facilitates conditions for agency and coherence. We do not diagnose, treat, or cure.
¹ Policy for the responsible use of AI in government v2.0 (digital.gov.au) – effective 15 Dec 2025; requirements phase in through 2026; AI impact assessment required for in-scope use cases by 15 Dec 2026. ² NSW AI Assessment Framework, DCS-2024-04 (digital.nsw.gov.au). ³ AusTender contract notices, UNSPSC segment 80 consultancy-flagged, Dec 2025–Jun 2026: median ≈ $93.5k, 87% < $200k (checked 11 Jun 2026). ⁴ Commonwealth Procurement Rules, 17 Nov 2025 edition, incl. Appendix A Exemption 17 and CPR 5.5–5.8 (finance.gov.au); MAS Flexibility Framework (finance.gov.au MAS FAQ). ⁵ NSW PBD-2023-03 (arp.nsw.gov.au). Facts verified 11 Jun 2026 against the sources above; procurement rules change – confirm current settings with your procurement team.