The ACT Public Trustee and Guardian has spent more than $1.46 million on a failed computer system upgrade that has created "administrative inefficiencies and introduced data security risks", an audit has found.
The Auditor-General's assessment of the customer relationship management system found it was unclear how the system was intended to make work more efficient because of "limited governance, management and administrative arrangements".
"It is not clear what effect the program has had on the PTG as an organisation, its organisational culture or efficiency," an audit said.
The Canberra Liberals said it was another example of a territory authority going rogue under the "characteristically ineffectual and unaccountable leadership" of Labor and the Greens.
Shadow Attorney-General Peter Cain linked the project to the abandoned $78 million human resources upgrade and the $8 million spent on Canberra Institute of Technology consulting contracts.
"Procurement was a critical feature of this ICT program. The culture, the legislation and regulatory settings have been established by successive Labor Ministers, all of whom have demonstrated routine incompetence and failure," Mr Cain said.
"Like CIT, we have another instance of a territory authority going rogue and thinking the laws of this land don't apply to them.
"It's because of the characteristically ineffectual and unaccountable leadership of this Labor-Greens Government that such deeply concerning behaviour is allowable."
A government spokeswoman said the government would respond to the more than 140 page report after the detailed findings had been reviewed.
Auditor-General Michael Harris said: "The CRM is not used widely across the organisation and is currently irrelevant to most of the PTG's staff and to large areas of the PTG's activities.
"There is limited evidence of improvements in organisational efficiency, improved client service and data security resulting from the implementation of the CRM."
The audit said it was difficult to say how much money had been spent on the program, but it was likely it was more than $1.46 million between 2017 and 2013.
"At no point in time did the PTG make a reasonable estimate of actual costs associated with the CRM, nor has the PTG sought to retrospectively estimate costs," the audit said.
The Public Trustee and Guardian has not spent any more on the project since 2023 and has not determined the future of the system.
The audit said a customer relationship management system was a system that captured, retrieved and analysed customer data.
"Once the domain of marketing or sales-oriented private sector businesses, the concept of a CRM as a central, critical business system has spread well beyond 'sales' and into the public sector," the audit said.
"In the public sector it is associated with high-volume, transaction-based customer-facing services and where there are likely to be multiple, complex interactions over time for which the retrieval of previous interaction activity (i.e. a customer's 'history') in real time is advantageous."
The audit found the aim of the 2017 business and transformation program, which was the genesis of the system upgrade, was soundly conceived but poorly constructed.
"The program lacked detail on what success would look like, what the timeframe would be for this to occur and how it would be resourced," the audit said.
"The management arrangements for the program were not formally resolved at the outset and any deficiencies of the program were at risk of not being addressed due to the lack of clarity around program roles and responsibilities. The business transformation program 2017 was not designed as a 'program' in any conventional sense."
The Auditor-General made nine recommendations, including that the Public Trustee and Guardian should develop robust business cases before embarking on computer system upgrades, and significantly improve documentation.
The Public Trustee and Guardian said it welcomed the findings of the audit, which it noted did not consider the quality of services provided to clients.
"The agency recognises the seriousness of the findings made. As identified in the audit report, in some areas the Public Trustee and Guardian has already addressed historical positions or approaches so that they now align with ACT law and public administration standards," the agency said in comments included in the audit report.
"The remaining recommendations will be considered and a government response provided in due course."
The Public Trustee and Guardian for the ACT was formed on July 1, 2016.
