Published on the 06/06/2013 | Written by Newsdesk

The results of the Novopay inquiry are out and show that a lack of overall governance and quality assurance were instrumental in creating the massive payroll issues…

The Novopay project has taken up hundreds of column inches since its bungled go-live last August. Now, nine years after the project was first conceived, the post mortem results are out and the gruesome details are being splashed across the headlines again.

As Steven Joyce, the Minister now responsible for Novopay said in a press release accompanying the Report of the Ministerial Inquiry into the Novopay Project: “This report makes for sober reading.”

“While it confirms the view that there is a lot of blame to go around for the problems with Novopay, it provides a greater understanding of the level of fault between the organisations involved”.

In the report’s executive summary, its authors Murray Jack and Sir Maarten Wevers said, “Notwithstanding the significant commitment and efforts of those involved, we conclude that the Novopay project has not met expectations, and has led to negative consequences for ICT projects and the public sector. Novopay should not, however, be regarded as symptomatic of all public sector ICT projects.”

The Ministerial Inquiry’s key findings include:

• The problems with Novopay have affected public trust and confidence in the Ministry of Education, and also the wider public sector
• Weaknesses in project governance and project leadership allowed Novopay to go live with a number of significant risks which the Ministry of Education and its vendors, including Talent2, were over-confident of managing
• These risks resulted in service issues and the Ministry and Talent2 were unprepared and overwhelmed by their nature and scale
• The School payroll is overly complex due to an accumulation of historical changes
• There was extensive customisation of the Novopay software
• There was a failure to involve the users of the Novopay system in the schools and appreciate their requirements
• There was no overall accountability for Independent Quality Assurance
• The project has cost $23.9 million more than estimated for a total cost to date of $56.8 million
• Ministers were not well served by the information they were given on the project. Reporting to Ministers was inconsistent, unduly optimistic and sometimes misrepresented the situation.

“There are substantial lessons to be learned by the Ministry of Education in a number of areas which the Acting Secretary of Education is taking steps to address. There are also lessons to be learned by the public service and the wider State Sector on the design, delivery and oversight of major ICT projects,” said Joyce.

The acting Secretary for Education, Peter Hughes, has said in a statement that he “accepts in full all of the findings and recommendations of the Ministerial Inquiry that relate to the Ministry”.

“A team of dedicated people worked hard on delivering a modern online payroll system for schools. In the end those efforts fell well short. The Ministry did not have the capacity – skills, processes and governance – for a project of this scale and complexity. There was not enough oversight from the leadership. Government Ministers were not served well by some of the advice and reporting they received, and that is unacceptable. I have apologised to them. Schools and their staff were badly let down and I deeply regret that. They deserved much better. I have written to all school principals, board chairs and all schools’ staff today to apologise personally to them.”

Hughes said he is already acting on the issues identified in the report. He added that following the problems that emerged last year, post go-live, the immediate focus was appropriately on fixing Novopay and making sure school staff were paid.

“We’re seeing steady progress and increased stability in the fortnightly pay runs and will continue to work with Talent2 to make sure this is maintained. Novopay has cost more than was originally agreed. In part this has been necessary to fix the system and make sure schools’ staff get paid. But we are keeping a close eye on costs and value for taxpayers’ money.”

He called the Novopay project “a very regrettable chapter for the Ministry” but was at pains to say that is should not “derail the tremendous amount of really good work done by staff throughout the country”.

Unfortunately this is not the first time that government IT projects have gone horrible awry.

“As the report notes, these problems are not unique with issues identified in the Ministerial Inquiry into the police computer system INCIS 13 years ago also evident here. The Government will be carefully considering the findings of the Ministerial Inquiry into Novopay. It intends to act on all the recommendations. It is critical these problems are not repeated again,” said Joyce.

Hopefully this time lessons will be learnt.