An audit of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission’s (ACIC) administration of a hi-tech personal identification system has found the Agency failed at almost every step.
In her report The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission’s Administration of the Biometric Identification Services Project, Acting Auditor-General Rona Mellor found that despite costing $34 million, not one of the Biometric Identification Service (BIS) project’s goals was met.
Ms Mellor reported that the BIS project was an initiative of the former agency CrimTrac which was merged into ACIC in 2016.
“While CrimTrac’s management of the BIS procurement process was largely effective, the subsequent administration of the BIS project by CrimTrac and ACIC was deficient in almost every significant respect,” Ms Mellor said.
“None of the project’s milestones or deliverables were met.”
She said two critical requirements were overlooked in the requirements gathering phase and the approach to negotiating and entering the contract which did not effectively support the achievement of outcomes.
“This was a result of the contract not explaining the milestones and performance requirements in a manner that was readily understood and applied” she said.
Ms Mellor found that ACIC did not effectively manage the BIS project.
“Its approach (was) characterised by: poor risk management; not following at any point the mandated process in the contract for assessing progress against milestones and linking their achievement to payments; reporting arrangements not driving action; non adherence to a detailed implementation plan; and inadequate financial management, including being unable to definitively advise how much they had spent on the project.”
She said the audit raised a number of messages for all Australian Government entities relating to Governance and risk management, Contract management and Records management.
The Acting Auditor-General’s 54-page report can be accessed at this PS News link and the audit team was Julian Mallett, Natalie Maras and Michael White.
