By Kevin Noonan

In recent years there have been a number of high profile failures in government information technology (IT) projects.

Big projects cost big money, but the potential damage from project failure goes much deeper, particularly when there are delays in delivering key government outcomes.

At a time of tight fiscal policy, there is little public forgiveness for delays and overspends.

A recent Queensland Auditor General’s report contains some interesting insights looking across government agencies.

The report raises very similar issues to the earlier Federal Government’s Gershon report. Perhaps it is now time to heed these messages.

When projects fail, it is inevitable there will be a review aimed at uncovering what went wrong.

There are good reasons why such reviews are important, however there are growing concerns that the issues run much deeper than just focusing on the job at hand. A broader inspection is needed.

Two government reviews have taken this approach. Even though they are separat  by time and location, each has come up with some strikingly similar conclusions.

In June, the Queensland Auditor-General tabled his most recent report to Parliament covering Information Systems Governance and Security.

In this report, he turned his attention to IT management trends across 14 public sector entities “to see whether there were systems and frameworks in place to enable effective management of IT at an agency level”.

The Auditor-General’s report delivers an amazing sense of déjà vu when compared to Sir Peter Gershon’s 2008 report into Federal Government IT.

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