This appeared a few days ago
Government will review all major ICT projects
Release Date:
17 February 2017
Media release
The Commonwealth Government will review all significant government technology projects.
Assistant Minister for Digital Transformation Angus Taylor said the review would provide greater transparency and oversight of Government’s $6.2 billion annual ICT spend.
"We need to make sure we’re delivering what the public needs, we’re avoiding duplication, and we have the right processes in place to minimise disruption to public services," Assistant Minister Taylor said.
A new investment management office within the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) will provide a comprehensive picture of ICT and digital technology investments. Government will be able to see the costs, benefits, risks and status of these initiatives.
"The DTA will ensure we’re investing in the right technology projects, we can track their implementation, and know they will deliver on the public policy benefits they promise.
"This is more than a review, it’s ongoing oversight, and it will provide unprecedented visibility and centralised management of IT projects."
One of the key capabilities of the expanded DTA will be to target technology assistance to government departments and agencies, and remediate projects.
"We can always do better - better impact for government by doing more with every dollar and better impact for citizens by providing easier-to-use services."
The review will include all non-corporate Commonwealth entities and all active projects over $10 million in value or those that engage a large number of Australians.
The review is expected to report to Government by mid-2017.
There is some additional coverage and background here:
DTA’s command and control begins with review of ICT projects
By Harley Dennett
17.02.2017
Government’s ICT failures will never go away entirely but perhaps they can be mitigated with better oversight, central control and provider diversification — at least that’s the hope.
The next step for the Digital Transformation Agency will be to review all major ICT projects as part of its oversight of the $6.2 billion whole-of-government ICT spend.
Assistant Minister for Digital Transformation Angus Taylor announced the review on Friday declaring it will “provide unprecedented visibility and centralised management of IT projects.”
Details are thin. The review will an internal exercise, conducted by DTA’s newly created Digital Investment Management Office headed by Andrew Woolf, the former assistant secretary at the Department of Finance prior to the machinery of government change in October last year.
The scope is any project valued over $10 million or provides a service affecting a significant number of Australians — so about as broad as it gets. Corporate entities like the NBN and Australia Post will be exempt.
The review will look for inefficiencies, mismanagement and duplication, opportunities through scale, and where skills support is most needed. The findings are likely to be embarrassing to those currently working on the projects, so there is no expectation they will be published when the review reports back to government in mid-2017.
Taylor says the goal is better bang for taxpayer’s buck, better outcomes for suppliers and better outcomes for users, especially Australians using government’s front-end systems.
“This review will give DTA genuine oversight, a view of what’s going on inside each major project in government and also a role in approving future investments and major procurement decisions,” Taylor told The Mandarin.
“DTA’s second role is a service delivery role. It can inject skills into projects … the combination of that oversight and the ability to work closely with agency that need support, is the model that will have the impact.”
Lots more here:
This quote from the release suggest the myHR will be reviewed – as the ADHA is an agency not a corporate I believe.
“The review will include all non-corporate Commonwealth entities and all active projects over $10 million in value or those that engage a large number of Australians.”
However this is a pretty big worry from the Mandarin report.
“The review will look for inefficiencies, mismanagement and duplication, opportunities through scale, and where skills support is most needed. The findings are likely to be embarrassing to those currently working on the projects, so there is no expectation they will be published when the review reports back to government in mid-2017.”
So the findings will be secret. We will obviously have to hope for leaks, whistle-blowers and so on or maybe an FOI request would work!
Of course we also still need the Auditor General to have a look at the whole project.
Dream on David I guess.
David.
It will be insightful to watch this play out. Will it change much? at this earlier stage and having witnessed so many reviews I am sceptical. As for PCEHR no review has ever seen it be stopped or slowed down even during the review. Once the switch is flicked to opt-out it will become irreversible and is thirty years it will be another Medicare payment system nightmare scenario
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