NDIA rebuilds as old systems, and ethics, collapse

The NDIA is promising a flexible, future-ready digital platform — but first it must move on from a legacy marred by spiralling costs, undeclared gifts, and performance failure.

The National Disability Insurance Agency is again planning a total overhaul of its technology systems. It says it will ditch the current outdated “monolithic” structure and replace it with a new modular, microservices-based architecture.

In what it describes as a “strategic transformation,” the NDIA is inviting industry to help design a new IT ecosystem that will integrate participants and providers using streaming architecture, service mesh technologies, and an open, event-driven model. It sounds wonderful. If only there wasn’t a history of similar promise, marred by complete failure.

Documents released this month highlight the ambition. Everything from claims processing and fraud management, through to communications systems and marketing functions, are on the table. Even PACE, the central customer platform, might be replaced or rebuilt.

Or not. But it’s the very inclusion of this system that immediately raises concerns amongst anyone with a memory.

Built by Salesforce, PACE has become a symbol of failure. Launched with a $27 million price tag, it blew out to a massive $135 million before coming under heavy scrutiny in a parliamentary report.

In June last year, the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit uncovered more than 100 undisclosed instances of gifts and hospitality provided by Salesforce to NDIA officials. This had continued over nearly five years and ranged from drinks and meals to gifts like golf games and clubs – and all while the system was supposedly being carefully scoped, tendered, and repeatedly expanded.

Yet at the same time as these reviews and expansion of ambition was proceeding, the system itself was becoming increasingly synonymous with failure.

It’s no wonder the agency is looking to start fresh.

On 21 July the NDIA briefed potential vendors, setting an August 11 deadline for initial requests for information. Officials say the new system will need to accommodate “diverse technology stacks” to meet the varied needs of the Scheme.

There’s nothing wrong with the ambition. What’s not quite clear is what has changed that will prevent a recurrence of the previous failure to achieve exactly this promise of transformation.

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The NDIA’s new digital ambitions are taking shape just as the foundations of its current system face collapse. These are falling apart under the weight of procurement failures, ethics breaches, and political embarrassment.

At the centre of it all is the PACE system – a customer platform developed by global IT giant Salesforce which has become irrevocably linked to governance failings within the Agency.

When Parliament’s powerful audit committee released its final report into procurement practices at the NDIA and Services Australia last year, it focused on the repeated failure to follow basic procurement rules. It found a lack of competitive bidding and the absence of proper, value-for-money assessment.

Its report concluded key NDIA officials failed to declare more than 100 instances of gifts and hospitality from Salesforce over nearly five years. The company confirmed this in writing, documenting drinks, dinners, and golf outings provided not just before and after the PACE contract was awarded - but as it continued ballooning in cost.

The Committee noted that the NDIA’s stated policy is no gifts or hospitality should be accepted that could “compromise integrity.” When the report was released, Chair Julian Hill MP emphasised this elementary precaution was “clearly not followed.”

Last year’s inquiry also found that other potential vendors were not afforded the same access as Salesforce. It raised questions over the role of former minister Stuart Robert, who was meeting with Salesforce and Synergy 360 — a lobby firm — around the time of the tender process.

The controversy was significant enough for the Committee to write to Salesforce’s Office of Global Ethics and Integrity, requesting answers on whether these gifts were authorised and how the company ensures compliance with its own corporate policies.

For the NDIA, the timing of the transformation couldn’t be more delicate.

Eighteen months ago an internal review called for a coherent digital roadmap. In February, the government committed $83.9 million to a revamp, although these measures were loudly trumpeted as being targeted at fraud detection - just not, ironically, at inappropriate behaviour occurring within the agency itself.

Now, with industry watching and Parliament still seeking answers, the NDIA is promising a clean slate.

But in systems — as in trust — architecture is only as good as the foundations beneath it.