Courts' $82m revamp on track

By RICHARD WOOD

The Department for Courts says its large computer projects are on track for completion this year and will not exceed the $82 million restructuring budget.

That is despite a bumpy, six-year ride involving a false start, rethinks, delays and now the withdrawal from New Zealand of the prime technology contractor.

For most of this year the Herald was frustrated in its attempts to get information about the department's IT projects, despite appeals under the Official Information Act and an appeal to the Ombudsman. The material requested still has not arrived, but suddenly the department seems ready to talk.

Its two major projects, which are for the collection of fines and case management, are due to be finished this month and in October respectively.

Another smaller project has come to light, which was signed in December and has now been canned.

The projects come under a 10-year, $82 million budget set in 1995 which aimed to bring the department into the computer age.

Acting chief executive Murray Short has confirmed that after six years the money is all but spent, but he says the job is almost done.

Total spending at May 31 was $73.7 million and projections to complete are within the $82 million.

The termination last month of four contracts with Accenture is the latest drama. This followed Accenture's decision to close its New Zealand office, which the department said had implications for logistics and ease of management of the relationship.

Accenture, formerly Andersen Consulting, was appointed in 1995 as adviser and consultant. Since then the department has also developed its own IT department.

Accenture has received $32.4 million over the six years, with $9.3 million being for the current computer projects. The rest was for process redesign, systems design, project management, IT strategy and implementation.

It also included computer systems for the Maori Land Court, general judicial systems, and sentencing and parole reform.

In an early left turn, the department signed a contract in 1998 with Washington firm Inslaw for a system that was to have incorporated the fines collection and case management requirements.

The department withdrew from that contract early after spending $2.4 million - at the same time as the police Incis computer system debacle.

"We went down a blind alley for a bit there with one product, but the fact that we switched to other products is not a big deal," said Short.

The department then decided to develop separate systems, as was recommended in a December 1999 report from the State Services Commission.

Datacom got the bulk of the job doing the Case Management System worth $14.3 million and Accenture got the Collect collections project for $8.59 million, of which $8 million has been spent so far. A number of other providers have also been involved on a smaller scale.

Short defended the size of the projects, given Government recommendations to steer clear of "big bang" projects.

"In Inslaw they were one big project. They are relatively big, but you couldn't break them down any further."

Problems were identified with the Collect project in June last year that were described as complexities of interfacing to the Wanganui Computer Law Enforcement System (LES) and 11 other agencies. Collect was originally due for completion about that time.

Despite the failed Inslaw project, the State Services Commission had rated the project low-to-medium risk and not requiring intensive monitoring. It said it was aware of the slippage through its regular reporting procedures.

The Courts Department was protected by fixed price contracts and Accenture was required to pay a still undisclosed amount to the department as a penalty for the delays.

The department has said no changes were made to the scope of the project at the time except a minor reduction in the number of reports required.

The urgency on the Collect project was highlighted in January when it was reported that around $25 million of fines were written off each year.

But a Herald source said this was not the impetus for the project, which rather came from the increasing volume of new fines.

In a review last December, work on the project was prioritised and lesser tasks put into a "deferred work programme". The Collect project, including the deferred work, will finish in July and the contract will end.

But with the termination of all Accenture contracts, an additional contract has come to light called the Collect Enhancements project.

The department has said this was signed with Accenture in December for $688,000 to add work on Collect, mostly to account for changes required by the Sentencing Act 2002.

Although this contract is now also officially dead, 12 Accenture staff will continue to be retained by the department to work on Collect support and enhancements.

The department said that, in particular, an interface to the Case Management system had been built as part of the enhancement project but testing and deployment still needed to be done.

Training and maintenance for Collect would revert in-house in July while future plans were made.

A contract for the knowledge and skills programme was also terminated on June 14 with Accenture. The department would not say how much it would save by ending its relationship with Accenture. It said payments to Accenture were only for work completed, with no exit fee.

Meanwhile, Datacom's Case Management System is set for October after earlier being brought forward to July from an original deadline of March next year.

When questioned about this yo-yo completion date a department official said it was a result of journalists ringing them.

"The date has changed because we shouldn't have really given you a date in the first place."

The Case Management System is an urgent project because if it is not finished this year the department will have to continue paying money to EDS for the use of the Wanganui Law Enforcement System.

The fines subsystem is also to be decommissioned, although overdue fines data will continue to flow to the Law Enforcement System for the police to action.