Government “botched” NDIS IT systems, says Labor

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news Labor has said the Coalition Government has “botched” the rollout of the IT systems for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) healthcare programme.

The opposition party cited reports in yesterday’s Australian Financial Review (subscription required) that it said “revealed the impact of the Turnbull Government’s mishandling of the NDIS rollout”.

The report said that fewer than 1,000 people with disability received support packages in the two months since the full rollout of the NDIS commenced on 1 July 2016, according to Labor.

Further, the report said the NDIS will only reach 50% of its target of 20,226 participants in the scheme by the end of September.

Calling the situation “completely unacceptable”, Labor said the Government is “putting this transformational scheme at risk”.

“First the Liberals failed to meet the August 2015 deadline for signing the bilateral agreements with the states. Some jurisdictions did not sign their agreements until May 2016,” said Jenny Macklin MP, 
Shadow Minister For Families And Social Services
.

“Then they completely botched the development of the IT system, resulting in massive delays to the assessment of participants and significant periods in which providers went unpaid.”

Labor called for Minister for Social Services Christian Porter to “start taking responsibility” for the problems with the NDIS rollout.

“Any attempt by the Government to attribute blame to anyone other than themselves would be a complete abrogation of their responsibilities,” said Macklin. “They cannot pass the buck on this, as they did with the Census. The NDIS is their responsibility.”

Labor concluded by saying it is willing to work with the Government to fix the NDIS issues.

In its coverage of the NDIS issues, the ABC said that while Government figures reveal that 15,000 people have been declared eligible for the scheme since July, less than 2,000 of them have had care plans approved.

Due to IT “design flaws”, the system may may not be able to function at full capacity for two years, the news source said.

21 COMMENTS

  1. Head over to my.gov.au to see the quality of public sector IT project delivery. (rofl)

    “Innovation” driven by politicians and their incompetent minions paid for by others (of course).

  2. It’s real simple.

    Government might say that they want to innovate … but they never want to pay the price for innovation.

    What they really mean is that they want to do more with less, without paying money to find out how to actually achieve it.

    Innovation always comes with a price tag … and it’s amazing how quickly silence enters the room when you ask for money to “innovate”, as if resources for testing and evaluating are meant to magically appear. You’ll find that across government, the price of innovation sits in some executive’s hot little hand … they just don’t want to politically pull the trigger on it because they want certainty behind their innovation, which by definition, cannot be counted upon (it’s a new way of doing something, some exploratory resources are needed here).

    New ways of doing things always comes with a price tag. Executives worried about budgets only see the short term budget dollar amount (and a possible adverse effect on their jobs I would imagine) rather than the dollars saved down the road. As with most things in government, politics gets in the way.

    • It is also because they are very risk adverse not as in they avoid risk but they avoid admitting risk. If you admit risk you have to price it and if you price risk the project may not even get of the ground. Paying for testing and evaluating is also admitting the project might fail. I hate to pull a Richard(bringing up the NBN in every comment section) but the current cost overruns with the NBN project are an example of this, no one admitting and pricing risk, same thing happened with the Census. I don’t know at what level risk is denied but I suspect it is near the top I’m not saying the minister directly saying there is no risk but when you say this project is going cost X and minister says no it needs to cost x-y the easiest thing to cut is risk mitigation.

  3. More bribing Liberal outsourcing. But intentionally crippled to privatise it. Once privatised they have say who gets paid just like with job network rorting the system.

    • Here’s the thing with privatising … and there are those out there that have the ideology that privatising solves everything.

      They’re missing a simple truth. Privatising something doesn’t make the work required any easier.

      It does however, shift the blame rather well.

      Commercial entities don’t do projects better than government. That’s a myth that commercial enterprise holds on to (I used to think that way myself). Projects fail on their own demerits, for many different reasons, commercial or government.

      What commercial enterprise does is attempt to bring commercial best practice to a non-commercial entity. That’s a recipe for disaster, which is why you see a lot of ex-government employees go and work with vendors. Vendors don’t have the government organisational navigational skills that government employees have.

      It really simple politically, privatise everything so nobody in government is left holding the bag. It’s just a pity that the when the blame is shifted .. the coal face problems still remain. It’s in business’s interests that problems don’t get solved. Can’t let that money drip dry up, can we?

      • @m “…there are those out there that have the ideology that privatising solves everything.”
        Who?

        “Privatising something doesn’t make the work required any easier.”
        At least has the opportunity to bring in competent staff.

        “Commercial entities don’t do projects better than government.”
        Greatest quote ever. Look around you; almost everything created by the private sector. The little (comparatively) created by the public sector was entirely funded by the private sector!

        “I used to think that way myself”
        Before suckling on the taxpayer’s teat yet demanding to be taken seriously with quotes like above;-)

        “…why you see a lot of ex-government employees go and work with vendors.”
        Actually very few do, we bring across some for their connections to obtain lucrative govt contracts. When finished we dump them (they’re hopeless).

        We’re talking about basic web portals that don’t (or barely) function despite hundreds of millions thrown at them; NDIS, ATO, my.gov, ASIC, eCensus, business.gov, …

      • “Who?”

        A whole bunch of people. I used to be one of them.

        “At least has the opportunity to bring in competent staff.”

        It is a myth that government staff are all incompetent. They have their fair share, no doubt, but not nearly as much as commercial enterprise likes to make out.

        “Greatest quote ever. Look around you; almost everything created by the private sector.”

        I’m looking at Southbank, QUT, and the Brisbane CBD. None of which could exist without government. Oh, and the new “Tower of Power” being built by private enterprise … that’s supposed to be finished. And isn’t.

        “The little (comparatively) created by the public sector was entirely funded by the private sector!”

        Spoken like an ideologue. My point exactly.

        “Before suckling on the taxpayer’s teat”

        No … that was when I was suckling on the taxpayer’s teat … working for commercial enterprise.

        “Actually very few do”

        Sez you Richard. My professional relationships prove you very wrong, as does any who have experience with the sector. Ask around a bit, they’re not hard to find. Oddly enough, some of them end up in very senior commercial positions. It works the other way as well by the way, with senior commercial people entering government too. The border is more porous than you realise.

        “When finished we dump them”

        Mindsets like this are easy to spot. Speaking so flippantly demonstrates you have very little regard for the knowledge that people take with them. Some may well move onto other things. But dumping for the sake of using someone and casting them aside … well … professional karma bites hard Richard. You haven’t learned that yet, but you will.

        “We’re talking about basic web portals”

        No we are not.

        We are talking about a multitude of backend systems that do not talk to each other, have their own idiosyncrasies, and in many cases, connect to back end databses/warehouses that were never designed to talk outside of their own proprietary environment.

        n some cases, they’re not even supported by vendors anymore, but they are kept in their zombie state simply because the government doesn’t want to spend taxpayer dollars upgrading them on a reasonable lifecycle. And if they did, wouldn’t the opposition love that “economically irresponsible” baton to whack them with.

        Some systems are not as simple as you think they are Richard. If they were, it would be a non-event to upgrade them.

        • Agree whole heartedly, also based on experience. Throw in to the mix that the pollies (I’ll go with LNP) change their minds at a perverted, destructive ideological whim and expect all the systems to jump to attention, all at no cost.
          Public sector has generally more complexity has been my experience. It doesn’t exist for one reason only – to make money.

        • Unfortunately, a privatised entity usually has a common goal.
          Success and Money.

          The government these days, they have 100 hands wanting to take their share or soothe their ego, and they all disagree with/back stab each other.
          No real focus on the task.

        • So Murdoch had the ideology for her simplistic view, and had then changed ideology.

          With all that competent staff why is so little achieved, why don’t we run into any, why so many disasters?

          M claims the Taxpayers teat is funding the private sector;-)

          Those buildings you see (plus all supporting infrastructure) were all built by the private sector, from materials fabricated by the private sector to designs imagined and realised on systems built by the private sector. The govt building also funded by the private sector, in all cases requiring their indefinite subsidies to remain open.

          Name these public sector employees in demand in the private sector beyond what I outlined. Few companies will even touch them; zero work ethic. There’s even departments where other depts wouldn’t touch them (eg education).

          I have great regard for knowledge and experience; why I have so little regard for public servants (have neither of any value).

          The govt is spending more today than ever. With all those “compentent” employees why are they in this position? Just joking; the portals are simple, tragically they haven’t even the basic skills to realise anything.

          If you think my.gov is a complicated project then I’d say you’ve found your home.

          • “So Murdoch had the ideology for her simplistic view, and had then changed ideology.”

            I guess you could say that, sure. Seeing both sides of the fence opened up my eyes somewhat. Believe it or not, there is ideology on the government side too about the private sector. It’s not unwarranted, but like the reverse, overstated to an extreme.

            “With all that competent staff why is so little achieved”

            There’s plenty achieved Richard. You just don’t hear about it. When things are working as intended it doesn’t make for exciting copy. Most newspapers, magazines and websites, no matter how rabid or fair, don’t print that stuff … it just doesn’t sell.

            “M claims the Taxpayers teat is funding the private sector”

            Absolutely it is. Vendors line up for government money the minute they get a sniff of interest. Don’t get me wrong, the private sector makes a nice chunk from each other too. But there’s a reason that most major vendors have dedicated staff for government.

            “Those buildings you see (plus all supporting infrastructure) were all built by the private sector, from materials fabricated by the private sector to designs imagined and realised on systems built by the private sector”

            That’s only recently Richard, the last couple of decades. Before then, the government built them, with their own builders. Sure the materials come from the private sector, but it’s government (and by extension taxpayer) money paying for them.

            “Name these public sector employees in demand in the private sector beyond what I outlined”

            I can name plenty in my contacts. I have no intention of announcing them on this site. Not only is it unprofessional, but they get to decide when they identify themselves. I may as well ask you to name yours.

            “Few companies will even touch them; zero work ethic.”

            There’s your ideology again. Sorry Richard, it’s not true. I guess you don’t know enough people yet.

            “I have great regard for knowledge and experience; why I have so little regard for public servants”

            No really? *chuckle* That’s OK, the public service is here for you Richard, no matter what you say about it. I know that’s hard to digest, but there are necessary services out there where net profit doesn’t come first. You’ll have to live with it I guess.

            “With all those “compentent” employees why are they in this position?”

            Because infrastructure costs money, just like it does in private enterprise. The difference being, is that government is accountable to it’s taxpayers on paper, but in reality it’s the political executives of the day that it answers to. There’s plenty of government employees out there looking to minimise taxpayer spend (remember, they’re taxpayers as well), but at the end of the day, they’re not the captains of the ship.

            “the portals are simple, tragically they haven’t even the basic skills to realise anything.”

            You have repeatedly shown that you have neither the technical knowledge, nor the inclination to learn about back end IT systems. Therefore I’ll take this comment with a grain of salt.

            “If you think my.gov is a complicated project”

            To be honest, I don’t know if that one specifically is complicated or not.

            That you would simplistically think that a front end website (which is easy to create I might add) is all there is to a service, then you’re only looking as far as a graphic designer does … how it visibly looks. Quite unrealistic.

          • @m “You have repeatedly shown that you have neither the technical knowledge, nor the inclination to learn about back end IT systems.”

            25 years delivering these solutions, correcting delim “knowledge” everyday. Go for it;-)

          • “25 years delivering these solutions”

            Not very likely Richard. You aren’t solution focused enough. Nobody who has been “delivering” since 1991 can afford to be your special kind of cynical and self righteous and deliver effective solutions, particularly in commercial enterprise.

          • @m your gibberish means nothing; my 25 years proves you wrong (as I the delims on a daily basis). Your tech knowledge? (rofl)

            ps I just read your census failure post. Comedy gold!

          • “@m your gibberish means nothing; my 25 years proves you wrong”

            I’m not in the business of comparing professional genitalia Richard. That you want to attempt to measure this speaks volumes.

            “I just read your census failure post. Comedy gold!”

            Then head on over and discuss, instead of attempting to troll here perhaps?

          • @m’s interest in genitalia unsurprising. Another delim blowhard posting uninformed musings.

            Even with a cause identified @m posts 4 points that wouldn’t have addressed the issue. All proceses!

            Looking forward to all those ps tech insights;-)

          • “Another delim blowhard posting uninformed musings.”

            Takes one to know one?

            “Even with a cause identified @m posts 4 points that wouldn’t have addressed the issue. All proceses!”

            Wrong article Richard. Head on over please.

            “Looking forward to all those ps tech insights”

            You planning on offering anything?

  4. When were the systems designed and by who?

    I half expect the fault actually lies with labor!

    • Ideally the NBN should have started on the densely populated areas first and new developments.
      Nbn map shows how scattered deployment is.
      The more customers you get from deployment, eases the recovery of expenditure.

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