Landonline critics told choices were right ones

By ADAM GIFFORD

Land Information New Zealand head Dr Russ Ballard is shrugging off criticism that the giant Landonline project to computerise title and survey records is overpriced and based on poor technology choices.

The cabinet last week approved stage two of the Core Records System (CRS) project, in which PricewaterhouseCoopers will be paid just under $9 million to build an application which will allow conveyancers and surveyors to electronically lodge and process routine land transfer and survey transactions.

That is on top of the $16 million it was paid to build the first stage, CRS1, a PowerBuilder application on an Informix database which integrates core geodetic and cadastral survey plans and title records in electronic form.

The total cost of phase two, including additional equipment and software licences, is between $12.8 million and $13.3 million.

Dr Ballard said the "midpoint forecast" for the total cost of Landonline was $146 million, meaning there was a 50 per cent chance of that price being met.

That is only $2 million more than the original midpoint forecast, and $2 million less than a revised 1999 forecast. As the largest Government sector IT project, Landonline is being watched closely for the type of flaws that dragged down the police Incis project.

This includes a tendency for long and complex projects requiring extensive custom development to be overtaken by other technologies that do a similar job at lower cost.

Completion times also seem to shift - Landonline is running at least a year later than originally scheduled.

Dr Ballard said CRS2 should be done by October next year, but work could still be going on the survey-ready cadastral database - although it is possible to use the system with the existing digital cadastral database.

People in the industry are also concerned at the hold PricewaterhouseCoopers has on all aspects of the project.

"PricewaterhouseCoopers won the CRS2 tender because it was the cheapest bidder," Dr Ballard said.

"Maybe because it knew more intimately what was involved, it did not need as much fat in the bid as the other tenderers."

As well as doing CRS1, PricewaterhouseCoopers prepared the requirements for the data conversion and facilities management tenders, which were won by EDS (Electronic Data Services).

Aaron Cornelius, managing director of imaging and workflow specialists ecom, which unsuccessfully tendered to do the conversion job in the initial contract, said ecom's bid for conversion of the back files was under $15 million, well under what it was costing Linz to have EDS do it.

"It's ludicrous. They could have done it right and done it cheaper from day one if they had used normal business methodologies," Mr Cornelius said.

Dr Ballard said it was baloney to suggest there were credible alternatives to what was chosen, and the critics were "people who do not understand the functionality required."

"We checked out some of those guys, and in no way did they meet the functionality and user requirements we have of this system.

"A number of other areas are now looking at producing survey-accurate cadastral databases, and it's us they come and look at. There is not a cheaper technology out there.

"Quebec is building one at a cost per plan about five times as here."

He said stage one of Landonline was essentially internal, allowing work to be processed electronically. As a byproduct customers could get access to some records, but "it's not transactional for them." Stage two will make the system transactional.