Fire and Emergency has been forced back to the drawing board after terminating its contract with Datacom late last year to provide payroll services to its 1800 career firefighters and almost 1000 management and support staff.
The emergency responder spent $29 million on the failed project, which was cancelled in December 2023.
Its quest to replace its payroll system began in 2020, when its current provider confirmed it would be withdrawing support from April 2022.
It put out an initial tender request in 2021, while negotiating to extend the support for its vendor, Ascender, to continue with its support for the current provider PSe (Peterborough Software Enterprises) until December 2022.
An initial business case put replacement costs at the $18m mark, with a ‘go-live’ date of February 2023.
However in 2022 a progress review found major shortcomings in what Fire and Emergency would actually end up with, and a “programme reset” began in August 2022.
This reset involved cancelling negotiations with the preferred supplier for the human resource component of the programme and further design work on the plan, which uncovered new areas of complexity that needed to be addressed.
These “areas of complexity” included the varied processes between regions and stations across the country, legislative requirements and the ability to work in the various terms and conditions within Fire and Emergency employment agreements.
The revised go-live date of September 2023 was pushed back, support for PSe was extended again until December 2023, and an extra $17.5m was approved for the project.
In early 2023 the new go-live date of December 2023 was deemed another false start and replaced with June 2024.
Cost estimates increased to close to $60m, with $13m spent as of June 2023.
Fire and Emergency investigated the option of managing the current software it had by itself, without vendor support, but this option, although more cost-effective, was deemed “too risky”.
In 2023, implementation appeared on track with new tenders going out to migrate the data from the old provider to the new, and for a testing partner.
A new business case for the implementation phase went to the board in September 2023 but concluded the end result was still not going to give the department everything it needed.
It resulted in the entire payroll programme being dumped after spending $29m.
At a board meeting on December 1, 2023 the board queried if Fire and Emergency was effectively starting again by ending the contract with Datacom.
“The programme confirmed that this was correct, and in the new year, Fire and Emergency would be looking to go out to [request for proposal] for a new solution,” minutes of this meeting confirmed.
“The board sought assurance that lessons had been learned from previous experience and that Fire and Emergency would not end up in a similar payroll situation. The [programme] provided assurance that the experience to date had identified more clearly the requirements for a payroll solution, and that the programme would be going out to [request for proposal] with very clear requirements.”
Last month, Fire and Emergency went out for a new tender on the Government tender website, Government Electronic Tender Service.
The human resource component of the programme (HRIS) was completed and is waiting to be integrated with the new payroll system.
A Fire and Emergency spokesperson said the new tender was broader in scope than when it went out in 2021 “to uncover suppliers capable of meeting the complexity”.
“It is a significant cost to replace a payroll system with the complexity of Fire and Emergency. The HRIS and payroll replacement programme has spent $29 million since 2021. We await the results of the current tender process to inform the replacement timeline and cost for a new payroll system to be in place.
“Like other agencies affected by the withdrawal of PSe support, Fire and Emergency is working on support options for PSe while working to source a new payroll solution.”
Delayed system a blow to employees
Meanwhile, firefighters have been battling for their correct pay amounts for months.
Professional Firefighters Union secretary Wattie Watson estimated in the past 12 months the union had dealt with “800 to 1000 different pay issues”.
“Every time there is a change in pay, or an issue that has to be resolved, it is hugely time intensive because it’s being done by individuals case by case and of course that just opens it up for human error, which is occurring.
“Every time we get a deadline for firefighters’ paid to be corrected, whether it’s a handful of individuals with the same problem, or whether it’s one … the timeline just gets blown out month after month after month.”
She said firefighters did not blame payroll staff.
“This isn’t a criticism of the people on the payroll system or those that are undertaking those tasks because the workload is significant.”
However she said the delayed payroll replacement programme, and the sunken costs, were further insult to injury.
“There has to be some serious investigation into why we are now in May 2024 and we still do not have the new system built, let alone applied, and the information that shows an absolute waste of millions on developing a system with a provider that was never going to be fit for purpose for Fenz’s circumstances is horrific.
“I am very concerned that the payroll system that is limping along will collapse. And if that happens, no one will be getting paid in a hurry and we can imagine what impact that will have.”
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