SFO drops Kiwi crime-fighting software

Craig Richardson, Wynyard Group. Photo / Sam Frost

The Serious Fraud Office has ended its three-year contract with Wynyard a year early because the software could not deal with some of its accounting documents.

In July 2013, the security software developer announced the SFO had signed up to use its programmes, intended to make the law enforcement agency's investigations more efficient and effective. However, the SFO had technical issues with the software and stopped using it in the middle of last year.

A Wynyard spokeswoman said the software had been delivered on time and in budget, but in 2015 the SFO requested a "unique feature" in the product, a request that Wynyard could not meet.

"As this product wasn't in our roadmap, we mutually decided to end the agreement two years in," the Wynyard spokeswoman said.

A spokeswoman for the SFO said Wynyard's product "was not compatible with some of the complex documents we handle."

In answers given by the SFO following its annual review, the agency noted compatibility issues between some of its forensic accounting documents and the software system.

The SFO is now using Microsoft SharePoint software, which also does not have the feature the agency wants, as a temporary solution. The agency is conducting a review of its software options to try to find a compatible product.

The agency declined to disclose how much the deal had cost, though it spent $100,918 on software licensing for the year ended June 30, 2015.

It also spent $63,447 upgrading SharePoint between March 31, 2014 and Sept. 31, 2015.