Labor spends $35m on payroll system that hasn’t delivered a thing

UPDATE: Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has denied any repeat of the Queensland Health payroll disaster in a new IT system designed to deliver the pays of paramedics, firefighters and prison officers.

IT Minister Leanne Enoch declined to say what action she had taken to prevent a bungle similar to Labor’s previous health payroll calamity. Picture: Liam Kidston

• Comment: Health payroll nightmare repeats
• EDITORIAL: Premier must get serious about payroll problem

PREMIER Annastacia Palaszczuk has denied there will be a repeat of the Queensland Health payroll disaster.

“It is not going to happen on my watch,” she said.

“There is not a person sitting around my cabinet table that doesn’t know what happened in relation to the Health payroll.”

Ms Palaszczuk said the roll out of the new payroll system was being done gradually.

“You start off small and you roll it out,” she said.

Ms Palaszczuk repeatedly stressed workers in the departments were still getting paid.

She said consultants PwC had been hired to do “due diligence” on the project.

“My understanding is that PwC has made other remarks … that they were very satisfied as well, with the system to date,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

Ms Palaszczuk said about half the $35 million spent on the project was done by the Newman Government.

“The amount of money that has been spent to date is equal to that that was spent under the former government,” she said.

However, Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls dismissed any suggestion the former Newman government was responsible for the bungle.

“Queenslanders must be shuddering today at the prospect of yet another payroll debacle,” Mr Nicholls said.

“The report says we are now two years into this government and there is still a lack of progress, there’s still a lack of program clarity, there’s still a lack of decision making.

“We made sure, before we moved from an old tired system that Labor had ignored called the Lattice system, that we had in place proper arrangements including the tender arrangements.

“But that changed when the government changed and since then we have seen, as this report shows, two years of bungling and delays and incompetence.

He said the report showed $35 million of the $100 million project budget had already been spent “and we are no closer to a solution”.

EARLIER: The Labor Government is at the centre of another payroll disaster after $35 million was spent on a new IT system that hasn’t delivered anything, is months behind schedule, and appears certain to blow its massive budget.

A secret report obtained by The Courier-Mail has revealed that the $100 million project for new payroll and staff management systems for paramedics, firefighters and prison officers has been seriously bungled.

The PricewaterhouseCoopers review stresses the need for urgent intervention, warning that the project had been stalled by Government indecision while continuing to cost $700,000 a month.

“Without substantial intervention, there should be low confidence that the program will deliver without ­additional time and budget being allocated,” the review states.

The botched program will draw comparisons with Labor’s health payroll fiasco, which morphed from a $60 million contract into an embarrassing $1.3 billion ­behemoth and caused thousands of workers to be underpaid or not paid at all.

The new system for the Queensland Ambulance Service, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, and Queensland Corrective Services is urgently needed to supersede the same outdated payroll program that had to be replaced in health.

The Newman government budgeted $100 million for the payroll replacement program in September 2012, but tenders lapsed during the election and the contract wasn’t signed until January 2016.

However, two contract variations have since occurred, and a business case wasn’t approved until June.

Premier Campbell Newman announces an inquiry into the Queensland Health payroll disaster, which is being compared with this latest payroll fiasco. Picture: Liam Kidston

“This has contributed to the program’s ambiguity and lack of delivery progress,” the report said. It said “significant inefficiencies” had occurred due to Government changes and indecision.

“Stakeholders advised that for significant periods of time throughout the program’s history they were unable to progress any deliverables due to uncertainty in government direction,” PwC said. “However, the monthly burn rate of ­approximately $700k remained consistent.”

The report found that $35.1 million had been spent but this could not be linked to the scope of the program. “As such, it is difficult to ascertain with certainty if the program is over budget as well as over time,” the report said.

IT Minister Leanne Enoch declined to say what action she had taken to prevent a health payroll-style bungle.

A department spokeswoman confirmed that the Corrective Services’ payroll rollout was in an “extensive testing” phase, despite being scheduled to “go live” last month. A new manager “with a proven track record for delivery” had been appointed to restructure the program.