Cabinet approves $1bn Centrelink systems upgrade

The Australian Government has announced it will officially go ahead with a $1 billion project ro replace the 1980s mainframe-driven IT that processes national Centrelink payments.

The Centrelink IT conundrum has played out on the public stage for the past six months as a chorus of government ministers offered their support to the proposal.

Last October the Government commenced a large-scale review into the welfare system to decide whether to proceed with anestimated $1 billion to $1.5 billionreplacement.

In the days following the release of the review's recommendations - which formally endorsed the overhaul - the Department of Human Services confirmed that a business case two years in the making had been submitted to government.

Since then a series of ministers have publicly acknowledged the inevitability of the expenditure, but did not go as far as to confirm the Governments funding committment.

Social Services Minister Scott Morrison today announced federal cabinet had signed off on the project in time for the 2015 budget.

A spokesperson for Morrison said the Government had not yet made a specific dollar funding commitment to the project.

"This 30-year-old system consisting of 30 million lines of code and undertaking more than 50 million daily transactions is responsible for delivering around $100 billion in payments to 7.3 million people every year," Morrison said in a statement.

"Investing in a new system will boost efficiencies and help advance many welfare reforms - you can't fix the system if you can't change the engine which drives the system and makes it work. The efficiencies it creates will also mean the new system will pay for itself over time."

Human Services will "immediately" establish a project team with a view to going to market for a new platform early in the next financial year, department minister Marise Payne said.

View post:
Cabinet approves $1bn Centrelink systems upgrade