The province should have seen the technical problems with the Presto roll out coming. The auditor general even warned them.
Back in the early 1990s, Ontario was looking to revamp the technology supporting the Ontario Works social services program. The province hired an outside consulting company — Andersen Consulting — to do the work.
The project faced significant hurdles and was the subject of audits and reports in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2002. The 2002 auditor general’s report, from which all the below quotes come, also summarizes the preceding reports.
After the system roll out, “most of the expected benefits to program delivery remained to be realized.” Most of the managers they interviewed said it was “a work in progress rather than a finished product at the time of its release.”
The contractor was paid $246 million by March 2002, more than the $180 million cap.
The report said “the basis for these (extra) payments continues to be questionable”.
The AG and a standing committee had already cautioned against these.
The most damning sentences are: “The new service-delivery system did not adequately support the administration of Ontario Works because of numerous unresolved systems defects. Business Transformation Project staff considered many of these defects to be emergency or high-priority items in need of repair.”
This included a failure “to provide needed information, provided it inaccurately, or provided it in a form that was not useful.”
The system also resulted in overpayment to recipients.
In 2001, the system “inexplicably” sent random payments totalling $1.2 million to 7,110 ineligible persons.
In 2001, Andersen Consulting changed its name to Accenture.
That’s the company that was awarded $250 million in 2006 to develop the Presto program by the provincial agency Metrolinx.
In other words, the company that made numerous technical errors in delivering the Ontario Works project is the same company that went on to make numerous technical errors in rolling out the Presto program.
Ontario Works’ “numerous unresolved systems defects” foreshadows the glitches with Presto.
Also, the AG noted some of the money paid out that exceeded the cap was actually to cover the contractor’s work correcting errors they had made, which the AG suggested should have been covered by the contractor.
This foreshadows the current concerns about whether Metrolinx will cover the costs incurred by Ottawa due to the Presto delay.
In terms of time delays — which Presto is also facing — the program was supposed to be rolled out in June 1999, but didn’t start until May 2001. To meet that roll out, several features were not completed.
These problems combined “do not inspire confidence and raise the possibility that other significant problems may go undetected.”
Further reports in 2004, 2006 and 2009 noted continued technical issues.
So not only did the province have a very similar experience with Accenture that it’s having now with Presto troubles, but the AG even highlighted this experience.
Part of the purpose of AG reports is to help government learn from its mistakes.
It’s clear we are owed answers.
I wanted to hear from Metrolinx CEO Bruce McCuaig.
However, Metrolinx wouldn’t answer my questions and referred me to the transportation ministry.
A spokesman for the ministry said, “The ministry cannot comment on a procurement undertaken in the past by another ministry.”
They then referred me to a value-for-money report by advisory firm Grant Thornton, and an Accenture contract review by former Ontario Supreme Court judge Coulter Osborne. Neither paper made note of the AG report.
None of this is satisfactory.
Ottawa transit chairwoman Diane Deans told me she hadn’t heard of the AG’s report.
I’m also waiting to hear from Mayor Jim Watson. He played a role in the creation of Presto while a provincial minister.
The Metrolinx website says choosing Accenture was the conclusion of “a rigorous competitive process.”
How rigorous? Did they know about the Ontario Works problems when considering Accenture? If so, did they bring up these concerns? How were the concerns addressed?
Thankfully, the AG has already confirmed, in a letter to MPP Jack Maclaren, he’ll investigate Metrolinx.
Regardless of what he finds, this is at best poor management.
At worst, it’s politicians and bureaucrats turning a blind eye to a disaster waiting to happen.
In answer to the 2002 report, the Ministry of Community, Family and Children’s Services, which was responsible for Ontario Works, said it “believes that complex systems of this type normally require a substantial operating period in a live environment to deal with all the complexities that are inherent in the design of such large multi-user systems.”
Never accept the “it’s complex” answer. Experts are paid good money based on their ability to deal with complexity.
Technical upgrades are often afflicted with bugs. It’s unreasonable to blacklist a contractor simply because there are some kinks in their initial model.
But the problems that afflicted Ontario Works — and now Presto — seem to go beyond minor bugs.
Either we have been taken for fools or those we have tasked with safeguarding our money are fools. Take your pick.
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Ron Payne
