The Herald began its investigation after hearing about delays to the Collect project.
On February 1 we established that consulting firm Accenture had been penalised for late delivery. We asked for more information about this and other IT projects but the department refused to answer our questions. What followed was a
seven-month process:
February 12 - Herald requests reports and information prepared for the States Services Commission related to the Collect, Case Management System and other computer projects under the Official Information Act. (The commission routinely monitors all government department computer projects.)
March 8 - Courts extends 20-day deadline for OIA request by 15 days.
March 29 - Courts denies OIA request.
April 11 - OIA request transferred to Minister of State Services.
April 17 - State Services Minister Trevor Mallard denies OIA request: "I do not consider that the public interest in this information outweighs the reasons for withholding it".
April 17 - Herald asks Office of the Ombudsmen to review OIA request.
April 29 - The Office asks the Herald to outline the public interest reasons for its claim. We point out there have been spectacular failures of Government IT projects such as Incis, ACCtion, NDIS and PRA - for the police, ACC, the National Library and the Justice Department. We argue: "As funding for these multi-million-dollar projects ultimately comes from the taxpayer we feel it is in the public interest to know how well these projects are being managed and how well this money is being spent."
May 2 - Herald extends OIA request to State Services Commission.
July 11 - Ombudsman says Courts and State Services Commission requests will be dealt with separately.
July 25 - Ombudsman requests more information from Courts.
August 26 - Courts prepare memorandum for Ombudsman on four of the Courts' IT projects.
September 9 - Ombudsman denies Herald access to audit and State Services reports but advises it has identified a valid public interest consideration for disclosure about the projects. Ombudsman agrees with our "bare minimum" level of disclosure about computer projects, namely: the project's budget, schedule and business case; whether it is on budget and schedule; if the project is falling behind or exceeding budget; why, and what is being done to rectify it?
September 13 - Courts send memorandum to Herald.