Concerning report re SSC governance of IT project

Dominion Post IT writer Tom Pullar-Strecker has several items in the paper this morning, including this Comment piece, which is not on line as yet:-

MY GUT feeling is the State Services Commission conceived the Government Shared Network with the best of intentions and — finding itself in a situation where its ambitions exceeded its relevant expertise — decided to lean heavily on a group of consultants that it knew and trusted to deliver what all concerned believed was a ‘sure thing’.

The fact remains that lines that were best not blurred, were blurred, and now it is clear the GSN will miss many of its goals, the commission may face difficulties justifying some of the decisions it made.

It is a surprise that a consultancy could have helped negotiate Treasury support and prepare ministerial and Cabinet papers and undertake briefings required to obtain government approval for a large IT project, and then be paid significant sums to carry out work on the project, once it had been approved.

State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie’s announcement that he will consider an independent inquiry — following an internal review — of the handling of the commission’s contracts with Voco should be warmly welcomed.

This represents a conflict of interest of a kind that government departments tend to avoid placing on contractors.

More troublesome, is how this implausible state of affairs could have emerged at a core government agency responsible for monitoring IT projects.

According to one source, the Government is preparing to spend as much as $54 million on a project to let people verify their identity so they can better access online government services. That is a very important project, and the public is entitled to strong assurances it will not be another letdown.

Adam finds it very concerning that this affair should have emerged at an agency charged with monitoring government IT projects.

If Pullar-Strecker is right in his assertions there is a lot for a review to explore and report on.