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The Victorian State Ombudsman has tabled his report, titled “Own motion investigation into ICT-enabled projects” with scathing comments about incompetence and poor practices in the Victorian public sector.

 Key findings in the report include the following:

1.  Leadership, accountability and governance Issued

•  Roles and responsibilities for ICT-enabled projects were often not clearly defined, acknowledged and accepted.
• Senior officers appeared reluctant to make critical decisions about projects.
• Many of the project steering committees did not have the requisite expertise.
• DTF could have taken a more pro-active role in many of the projects.
• The effectiveness of DTF’s Gateway Review process was limited by its reliance on agencies engaging in and being supportive of the process, which often was not the case.
• The government announced its ’high-value and high-risk’ process in December 2010; however, there is limited publicly available information about the process and some witnesses from DTF and departments remained unclear about the process

 2. Planning Issues

•  Agencies failed to commit the necessary time and effort to develop business cases, which led to significant differences between the planned and actual time, cost and outcomes.
• In some cases, optimism bias led to costs and timelines being based upon hope, rather than evidence or comparisons with similar projects and despite advice from experts and vendors.
• Agencies often gave the government no choice other than to invest in the agency’s preferred option and failed to provide government with adequate advice to make an informed decision.
• Business cases for many of the projects were not updated throughout the life of the projects. In some cases, they were not read by key people.
• Insufficient attention was given to managing or mitigating risks.

 3. Funding Issues

•  Agencies felt the need to create ‘big vision’ projects to capture the government’s attention, which increased complexity and risk.
• In some cases the Cabinet budget committee only partially funded projects, but agencies failed to revise the scope of the projects to fit within the allocated budget.
• Public announcement of major project funding decisions prior to business case development resulted in business cases being rushed and projects being ‘shoe-horned’ into the published funding ceiling.
• The costs and timelines of comparative projects were sometimes ignored.
• Projects funded internally have not been subject to the same level of scrutiny as projects funded by the Cabinet budget committee.
• Agencies were unable to identify the cost of significant projects with any accuracy.

 4. Probity and procurement Issues

• Agencies appeared to pay limited regard and expanded minimal funds on probity advice and audit.
• Agency and probity practitioner responses to conflict of interest sometimes failed to recognise the importance of the perception of a conflict of interest.
• The tendency appeared to be to purchase an off-the-shelf system and then to customise the system to such a degree that the benefits were lost to government.
• The evidence suggests government should explore new procurement methods for ICT-enabled projects.
• Large vendors are well-versed and experienced in contract negotiations and government is generally at a disadvantage for that very reason.

 5. Project Management Issues

•  Several agencies failed to act with enough urgency to address potential problems and in doing so allowed the issue to escalate.
• There is a shortage of skilled senior project managers with relevant ICT experience in government. To compensate, agencies often appoint expensive contractors or inexperienced public sector staff.
• Managing vendor and user relationships can be a complex exercise and agencies have adopted differing approaches to this problem with varying success.
• Approaches to training staff were varied and not always effective.

 Call me pedantic and unreasonable person but few of the findings really annoyed the hell out of me, first and foremost the fact that the combined overruns of the 10 projects investigated was $1.44 billion. Then comes Myki, the disgraceful execution of a ticketing sysem was found to be at least $350 million over budget and at least four years behind schedule. But Myki is only one of 10 failed projects – all exhibiting the above ailing symptoms.

As a tax payer I am appalled and as a Project Manager I am embarrassed.

Think about it!

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