The Victorian Ombudsman has delivered a scathing report on the practices of the Victorian public sector in managing information & communication technology enabled (ICT-enabled) projects, claiming inefficient practices have cost government in excess of $1.4 billion.

It found that despite numerous reports delivered by the Ombudsman and Auditor-General over recent years, “we see little sign of lessons learnt in the public sector. The evidence to date is that the public sector is not managing ICT-enabled projects effectively, as demonstrated by the current difficulties that Victoria is facing in this area and the increasingly adverse public comment about major ICT-enabled projects. A new and more disciplined approach is required if the government is to avoid being faced with continuing cost overruns and failures to deliver.”

A selection of 10 major Victorian state projects were examined in the health sector, policing and  the troubled public transport ticketing system myki. These  have blown out from their original budgets of $1.3 billion to an estimated cost is $2.74 billion – an additional $1.44 billion cost to government

The report notes: “National and international research has concluded that ICT-enabled projects are poorly managed and failures are common. Research also indicates that the private sector and overseas institutions have their share of ICT project disasters with reports of cost overruns of 200 per cent, schedule overruns of 70 per cent and some 80-90 per cent failing
to meet performance objectives.

Despite the research and Ombudsman and Auditor-General reports, it says there are few signs that any lessons have been learnt in the public sector.

“On average, projects will have more than doubled in cost by the time they are finished. Two of the projects will have more than tripled their original budgets in order to reach completion.”

“In a number of cases, insufficient planning led to a failure by agencies to understand their existing business processes, the old system and what they needed the new system to do. This in turn led to increased costs and delays.

“There was often a lack of documentation or understanding among staff about the old systems, including business rules, the meaning of the data collected and any interfaces with other applications.

The report notes that “ Victoria Police in particular, have appointed staff with limited project management experience and almost no relevant ICT experience to manage large complex ICT projects such as replacing the LEAP database – the primary central information system used by Victoria Police since 1992 to record crime incidents and personal particulars.”

The report also slammed the HealthSMART program, which commenced in 2003 as a $323 million program to build a consistent ICT foundation across half of the Victorian
public health service

HealthSMART was originally scheduled for completion by the end of 2007. The timelines were later extended to the end of 2009.

“The finance and patient management applications were finally completed during 2010. Delays and budget overruns compromised the planned release of the clinical application and DOH estimated that it will take up to two years to finish the remaining six health services. This means that by the time the original specification is delivered, the system will be over ten years old

“DOH planning failed to fully recognise that each health service would require a separate, board approved, business case prior to implementing any HealthSMART application. This delayed the roll out of the clinical application. DOH also underestimated how significantly health service ICT systems would need to be upgraded to run the clinical application and how long it would take to do this.

“The deployment of the clinical application was further delayed by the vendor. The main delays related to adopting Australian terminology and medications content for electronic prescribing and these problems have persisted post-release. Pharmacists and doctors interviewed complained
that the medications data is up to 18 months out of date.”

It notes that “several senior doctors and pharmacists interviewed felt that the clinical application may have a negative impact on patient safety by:
•  forcing doctors to adopt a model of practice based around the functionality of an ICT system rather than best medical practice
•  requiring doctors to jump between multiple systems to access patient data
•  the overly complex, unfriendly user interface that is encouraging doctors to take shortcuts and in some instances refuse to use the system at all.

Another failure is the Integrated Courts Management System (ICMS) that is designed to integrate the Victorian Department of Justice’s technology for all Victorian courts and tribunals.

The Integrated Courts Management System (ICMS) is over three yearsbehind schedule and is expected to cost an additional $21 million to complete. However, its future is uncertain.

According to the Supreme Court, ICMS’s case management system (CourtView) fails to meet the court’s needs. The Supreme Court has ultimately resolved to pilot its own system to provide case management.

Another Victorian government initiative, The Housing Integrated Information Program (HIIP) project, is seven years behind its original schedule and has exceeded its original budget by over $30 million. Additional funds are likely to be needed to complete the project.

The full Ombudsman’s report is available HERE.
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