Ministers in the ACT government need to be held more accountable for mismanagement in their portfolios and be required to actively work to prevent blunders, a parliamentary inquiry has found.
The Legislative Assembly's public accounts committee recommended the ministerial code of conduct be bolstered by the chief minister to ensure ministers are also held accountable for any significant mismanagement.
"The committee does not seek to apportion punitive blame, but rather to encourage personal accountability as an inherent feature of responsible government. Individuals in positions of power within public administration, whether elected or not, must be answerable for their actions, and be open to redirection or sanction," the committee said.
The recommendation was prompted by the failed upgrade of the ACT government's human resources system that cost $77.7 million before it was abandoned.
The public accounts committee said it considered the failure of the HRIMS program to be an example of a profound lack of accountability and failure of governance in the ACT public service.
"The committee is concerned that, despite the government indicating it has learned multiple lessons from the issues and challenges revealed by this failure, it has been difficult to identify anyone directly accountable for delivery of the program within the ACT public service, and no minister has accepted responsibility for the failure," the committee's report said.
The head of the ACT public service should also develop a plan to improve and enhance accountability in the service and provide an annual update to the public accounts committee, the inquiry recommended.
The head of the ACT public service should be designated as the officer responsible for the culture of accountability at all levels of the service.
The chief minister should also report to the Legislative Assembly each year on governance and accountability in the public service, the inquiry found.
"The committee recommends that the chief minister, as the responsible minister, set clearly defined performance objectives for the head of service and actively [performance manage] the head of service to ensure governance in the ACT public service is fit for purpose and for the culture of accountability of the ACT public service as a whole," the committee's report said.
The tripartisan committee released its report into six months' worth of auditor-general's reports on Thursday, the last day before the government entered the caretaker period ahead of the October 19 territory election.
The committee said the government's actions to improve procurement processes after the failed HR system upgrade had been positive but found the work was not complete.
"The committee is of the opinion that continued scrutiny and vigilance is required to ensure that a failure such as the HRIMS program does not occur again," the committee's report said.
The ACT Auditor-General in December 2023 strongly criticised the handling of the upgrade project, finding it was a "significant failure for the territory".
Only one module of the program was ever delivered until it was terminated midway through 2023. The original program had been costed at $15 million and approved in the 2107-18 ACT budget.
The government's response to the audit said the new human resources project would incorporate all the recommendations from the abandoned HRIMS project.
"The ACT government is confident in the ability of the [ACT public service] to embrace and apply the lessons learned from the HRIMS project across all future ICT project, and in the process build a robust risk culture that promotes transparency, human centred design, stakeholder inclusion and a commitment to best practice project and program management," the government's response said.
