The Department of Human Services' 30-year-old IT system used for welfare payments is to be replaced.
The new platform is expected to maximise the benefits of e-government, reduce the costs of administering the system for taxpayers and help crack down on welfare cheats.
The project, one of the world's largest transformations of a social welfare IT system, will take several years to complete.
The first step is the assembly of a project team so that the Department can go to the market for a provider early in the new financial year.
Minister for Human Services, Senator Marise Payne said the project would be carried out in multiple tranches, with the public beginning to see benefits of the upgrade at the end of next year.
The current system consists of 30 million lines of code undertaking more than 50 million daily transactions responsible for delivering around $100 billion in payments to 7.3 million people every year.
"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," Senator Payne said.
Minister for Social Services, Scott Morrison said the 1980s technology propping up the current system was built for an era of paper records. It was costly to maintain and incapable of taking full advantage of the digital age.
He said the new system would be designed around the clients while the Government would benefit from faster, less costly implementation of social policy changes and better data analytics to inform policy decisions.
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Quelle/Source: PS News, 14.04.2015
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