An Oracle-based system used to administer grants for the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) was not up to the task of monitoring the billions of dollars which has passed through it over the years, the federal auditor-general has said.
An Oracle-based system used to administer grants for the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) was not up to the task of monitoring the billions of dollars which has passed through it over the years, the federal auditor-general has said.
The NHMRC's information systems do not adequately support the
NHMRC's core business.
Auditor-general
The auditor-general's report on the council said that its core
information systems left much to be desired.
"The NHMRC's information systems do not adequately support the
NHMRC's core business — grant management. Its primary grant
management system contains substantial data anomalies. Furthermore,
the system does not accommodate the monitoring of grants financial
and progress reporting requirements, or capture qualitative
information from submitted grant reports."
The system had no internet interface, so that applications had
to be uploaded and budget amounts entered manually, risking
processing errors. The reports function was also unable to provide
inaccurate reports because of the high number of duplicate
records.
The original scope of the system, implemented in 2002, had been to
only manage project grants, but it had expanded to record other
grants programs. This had led to multiple databases, which the
auditor-general did not consider ideal.
The system was unable to monitor the progress of grant
applications or to flag projects for which the final reports were
late. It also couldn't check if researchers held more than the
allowed six grants per person. There was no way in the system to
make funding contingent on projects meeting certain criteria such
as ethics requirements. The system also only held one financial
year, while grants could go over multiple financial years.
The NHMRC responded that it had been aware of the problem, and
since 2007, had been developing a replacement system which is to go
live to all grant schemes by 2010. Pilots of the new system were
scheduled for this year.
The new system will be a customised version of CA's Clarity. The
budget for the system to the end of 2012 is $3.3 million. CA is
receiving around $3 million for the implementation while Logica
will be paid just under $1.5 million for hosting the system until
January 2012.
The auditor-general believed that the new system would fix many
of its concerns, but recommended that the council introduce a
regular data verification program, compliance controls, an
interface between the new system and the council's financials, and
good documentation.
