More justice delays from Labor’s court cost blowout

Labor’s bungled handling of a major court upgrade project has cost taxpayers more than $11 million in increased capital costs and at least 14 months in delays, the Auditor-General has found.

In another damning assessment of Labor’s inept handling of major IT projects, the Auditor-General found the budget for the Integrated Courts Management System (ICMS) project blew out by 36 per cent from $32.3 million to $44 million with completion delayed by at least 14 months.

“This project was supposed to provide an integrated computer system to improve efficiency and reduce court delays, but taxpayers have again been the victims of Labor’s incompetence in handling major projects,” Shadow Attorney-General Robert Clark said today.

“Labor’s abysmal mismanagement has worsened the already massive delays in the Victorian justice system,” Mr Clark said.

“While the Premier and Attorney-General utter empty words about improving the Victorian justice system, thousands of Victorians languish on court waiting lists while struggling to get their cases heard.

“Victoria’s bulging criminal courts waiting lists include the biggest backlogs in Australia for Supreme Court appeals, County Court non-appeal cases and Children’s Court cases.

“Almost all waiting lists have dramatically worsened since 2003, while over the same time period most NSW waiting lists have improved,” Mr Clark said.

The Auditor-General’s report, Connecting Courts – the Integrated Courts Management System, found there were ‘critical uncertainties’ in the government’s assessment of costs, that the procurement strategy was not well defined, and there was no proper analysis of the risks of the government’s supply arrangements.

The government was forced to abandon its original plan of enhancing existing software and switched to a different solution which involved a higher degree of risk but failed to conduct a ‘robust’ assessment of the implications of the new solution.

The government then used an ‘ineffective delivery monitoring system’ without having the up-to-date information it needed.

“This catalogue of incompetence shows yet again that the Brumby Government cannot deliver projects on time or on budget,” Mr Clark said.