12 May 2000

STATE SERVICES MINISTER WELCOMES INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY REPORT

The Minister of State Services Trevor Mallard has welcomed an Audit Office report on the governance and oversight of large IT projects.

The Audit Report began the report last year because of concern about the time, cost and performance of government IT projects during the late 1990s.

"The report will be useful to the State Services Commission to support and improve its monitoring of large IT projects," Trevor Mallard said.

"It looked at the basic governance structures for IT projects, how IT projects actually happen and the reasons for success and failure.

"One of the useful aspects of the report is that it contains a set of questions which could be used by Chief Executives, Ministers and Select Committee members when considering major IT projects.

"While this may not be a final list of questions – it is a useful start.

"In the end this report is another useful piece of information which can be added to the body of knowledge in this area.

"This government is keenly aware of the IT project failures of the last government. We have been tasked with the job of not only fixing the mistakes made by that administration but of finding ways to ensure they don't happen again.

"We recently announced our e-government vision and work has begun on our e-government strategy. A vital element of that strategy is to include common system and data management policies standards and guidelines.

"Ensuring departments have systems in place which meet the high performance standards expected of them in this day and age is crucial for us to run a successful government system," Trevor Mallard said.

Copies of the report available at: www.oag.govt.nz
kerry.lamont@parliament.govt.nz

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