The Aged Care minister has defied a Senate order to detail the procurement and roll out of $800 million of upgrades to government aged care technology systems that were outsourced to global software and services firms.
The government says the order is unreasonable and has instead proposed providing the Senate with only publicly available documents, effectively keeping hidden information like tender evaluation reports, reviews and ministerial updates.
Senator Fatima Payman, who secured an order in the Senate to produce the full array of documents, said the government had indicated it is not willing to comply, but she will continue to push for key information.
The $1.4 billion tech project includes $800 million for new digital systems to support new aged care legislation that introduces new care and reporting rules.
Accenture, Salesforce and Capgemini led work on the centrepiece Government Provider Management System (GPMS) for the new reporting requirements.
A business-to-government project (B2G) portal to connect provider software to government systems is the other key component in the upgrades and also relies on Salesforce software.
As revealed by InnovationAus.com, the project struggled from the start and has ballooned in costs since.
A handful of foreign tech suppliers have exhausted almost the entire project budget as the deadline for care and reporting changes slipped in July.
The heavy reliance on Accenture, which has been involved in several previous Canberra tech wrecks, and the procurement scandal linked Salesforce has added to the scrutiny.
Senator Payman’s successful order for the production of documents in October required the Albanese government to provide the Senate with extensive information on the project.
The order includes documents on expenditure, uptake levels, software licensing agreements, reviews, advice to government on the work, and price comparisons of Salesforce and its subsidiary MuleSoft with competitors.
“For GPMS alone, contracts with a combined value of $700 million have been signed for what appears to be the simple configuration of a Salesforce instance,” Senator Payman told InnovationAus.com.
In response to the Senate’s order, Aged Care minister Sam Rae said the request would require searching for and analysing at least 130,000 documents and would be an unreasonable drain on public servants’ time.
He proposed a private briefing for Senator Payman and that the Senate be provided with only public documents.
Senator Payman, who is also seeking more information on a $180 million Salesforce project at the National Disability Insurance Agency, said she will pursue new orders focused on value for money assessments.
“I intend to move further orders for the production of documents that are designed to capture specific documents to reveal whether value-for-money was achieved through these contracts,” she said.
“I also hope to prosecute these matters during the forthcoming estimates hearings next week.”
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