Brian Easton asks: Was another IT debacle inevitable given the management arrangements?

This is a re-post of an article originally published on pundit.co.nz. It is here with permission.

In February 20022, Archives New Zealand (ANZ) switched its electronic access to the nation’s public records from ‘Archway’ to the new Collections system, also known as  ‘AIMS’ (Archives Integrated Management System). There was immediate outrage by users. As Archives New Zealand politely said: ‘Ongoing issues with poor functionality, bugs, and unplanned disruptions in service caused increasing levels of dissatisfaction from users and government agencies.’

The October 2022 Foreconsulting report which reviewed the failure has just been released. It needs to be put in a wider context of Archives New Zealand increasing loss of professional independence and its shift from professional to generic management.

I have no expertise in the management of electronic files. This column is about general management in the public service. I do care about our public records because they are a fundamental part of a liberal democracy in that they help hold the government to account. This has been brilliantly illustrated by the historical investigations of the Waitangi Tribunal, although where they showed that the government had behaved honourably has not been as widely reported. In contemporary terms, the Public Records Act is critical to the workings of the Official Information Act; without it, officials could legally destroy public records, making the OIA ineffective.

Sadly, the Department of Internal Affairs, of which Archives New Zealand is a part, has no similar commitment to accountability, despite having particular responsibilities in the area. It sees the public records as primarily a part of the nation’s heritage. Certainly they are, but democracy and accountability are more important – totalitarian regimes go on about their heritage too. Its recent briefings to incoming ministers are almost opaque about the issues ANZ faces; they do not even tell ministers that the Chief Archivist has the right to go direct to the minister; he or she is ranked too low in the DIA to be named.

The history of Collections begins in 2015 with a project to look at replacing the suite of products used by ANZ and its customers, because it was thought that these systems were no longer fit for service and were putting operations and customer service at risk. However, the project was put on hold because of funding constraints.

In early 2018 the project was approved. There were four proposals from consultants and in October 2018, the Swedish-based firm Axiell was selected. They began work in late 2019. However, soon after, there was a ‘deteriorating situation’ and the go-live date of May 2021 was abandoned. The COVID lockdown would not have helped, but Foreconsulting also reports that there was ‘personnel turnover at every level ... The project team and the receiving organisation were fatigued and relationships were strained. ... Project personnel were not available when the significant issues began to occur and the operational team was under-prepared for what hit them ... A disconnect between the workers and leadership – project board members did not universally understand their roles.’

In February 2022, nine months after the May deadline, Collections went live, followed by the outrage as members of the public, specialist researchers and archives staff identifying ‘significant issues and challenges.’ The new system was clumsy and did not do some obvious and necessary things that the old system did, such as enabling one to search for an agency, action, or individual, across the entire public record.

The Foreconsulting report draws attention to numerous failures in the management of the project. Perhaps they will be addressed in future such projects although generic managers tend to have such short memories that they do not recall such lessons. After all, this belongs to the ‘yet-another-bloody-IT-consultancy-failure’ debacle pile; do we never learn?

I observe a couple of further takeaways. One is that there seems to have been little consultation with users. It may be that they know little about the electronics of archiving – was there anyone in the ANZ supervising team who did? – but at least they would have discouraged a ‘go-live’ release when the new system was not ready for the users.

The second arises from an almost cryptic comment in the report that during the contract awards process ‘given proximity and relevance we would have expected checks to be undertaken with New South Wales State Archives and Records Authority (NSWARA). We understand later discussions with NSWARA revealed challenges encountered during their implementation journey.’

What this seems to be saying is that the NSWARA either used Axiell or its approach to archives management and that it had ‘challenges’ which if ANZ had known about, they may have used a different contractor or been better prepared for the difficulties they were to face.

Why was NSWARA not approached? The Foreconsulting report gives no clue, so allow me to hazard a guess. At the time of the 2018 contract, the Chief Archivist had an impressive IT background, but no background in archive management. Am I allowed to guess that he had no knowledge of the NSWARA, or informal contacts with his equivalent in that agency? One of the features of senior professionals is that they have informal international relationships through correspondence, visits and conferences. But the Chief Archivist at the time was not a professional archivist – his predecessor had not been either. (His successor was a professional but by the time he took over, the die was cast. The current acting Chief Archivist is not a professional archivist.)

We have yet another example of the dangers of generic managers, who are not knowledgeable about what they are managing. The result was a lemon. The Foreconsulting report does not discuss costs, but it was probably an awfully expensive lemon.

The report was commissioned to identify lessons to be learnt. Nobody is held to account. Will any of those involved have their employment record flagged that they were in this management disaster? Generic management is about passing the buck.

Once every three years, the accountability of the government is assessed by voters. But only that of the politicians – not of the officials. Which is not quite fair since there are instances of officials thwarting the politicians. But the politicians do little about this and have even reduced the accountability of officials to parliament, as with the Public Service Act 2020. Perhaps they get what they deserve; democracy does not.

(Footnote: In December 2022, it was announced that there were serious security breaches of personal records at Archives New Zealand. Among those who apologised was Axiell (as well as Archives New Zealand). They are not discussed in the Foreconsulting report which was finalised before the breaches were made public.)

*Brian Easton, an independent scholar, is an economist, social statistician, public policy analyst and historian. He was the Listener economic columnist from 1978 to 2014. This is a re-post of an article originally published on pundit.co.nz. It is here with permission.