Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Human Services, Senator Payne. Can the minister explain to the Senate how the age and complexity of her department's main ICT system makes it difficult to implement reform?

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Ruston for that question. This is an issue which has been discussed recently both in estimates and elsewhere. We are running an ICT payment system in the Department of Human Services, which is now more than 30 years old. It was, in fact, built in the early 1980s. Some of us in the chamber can still remember those days. I think Mr Hawke was Prime Minister; the late, great Peter Brock was winning at Bathurst; and—it was a very long time ago—the Parramatta Eels won a premiership.

The system originally delivered $10 billion worth of payments to around 2.5 million people, but it has become a critical piece of government infrastructure that is now responsible for delivering payments of about $100 billion to 7.3 million people each year. That equates to about $12 million every hour. The system is stable and it is reliable, but it does not have the sort of flexibility and longevity that we need in that particular system.

To meet today's needs, the original system has been repeatedly upgraded and extended, I am advised, over 350 times. What we now have is a web of interconnected systems with add-ons and attachments. A simple update, for example, often requires changes to many different parts of the system. So if you want to make much-needed policy changes they can, through the ICT process, take a number of months to implement.

We have a very highly skilled and committed team of ICT experts who work in this area in human services. In fact, it speaks for itself when I say that some of them as individuals have actually worked on this same system for more than two decades. But there are very few organisations around the world that still use this type of computer system, and that makes attracting appropriately skilled staff—some of the few who are still familiar with that system—quite difficult, and retaining them is also a significant challenge.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister inform the Senate how the current ICT system creates extra work and impacts on staff and customers?

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Notwithstanding the efforts that have been made to bring the system into the 21st century—and dragging it through the 20th century, in fact—that 1980s foundation does make things needlessly complicated for staff, for government and, in fact, for our customers on a number of occasions. This is largely because it is built around individual payments and not around the person or their family and their particular circumstances. If you are a customer who starts a new claim, even if you are an existing customer, the current system treats you as a new customer; so you are required to provide all of your details again, even if they been provided previously, and it does build a certain level of frustration amongst both staff and customers.

We would like to be able to deliver seamless digital services. They are commonplace in the private sector and there is a certain expectation amongst customers that that is what they should receive. If you want to order online you can often track your delivery. You cannot do the same, necessarily, with your payments. (Time expired)

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Will the minister advise the Senate what the government is doing to improve the current ICT system?

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do thank Senator Ruston for that question, which we did have an opportunity to canvass briefly in the estimates process. The government is considering a business case to replace the current system. We have made an enormous amount of progress with a suite of digital apps and with online services, but it is a difficult process and the current system no longer meets the expectations of customers.

If we had an appropriately modern ICT system that would definitely improve service delivery, it would remove the ongoing cost to taxpayers—

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

which some of us care about—not those opposite, obviously—and it would also increase ability to implement reforms. We would ensure that our welfare system as it stands is able to interact properly and seamlessly with other Commonwealth government departments—which, of course, my colleagues have every right to expect in 2015 and in the years going forward. It would reduce the red-tape burden on customers, on staff and on other government agencies. (Time expired)

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.