Tech failures threaten another delay to aged care reform as costs soar and contractors cash in

Australia’s largest aged care overhaul in decades is now facing yet another setback, with serious concerns that the newly rescheduled 1 November rollout will not proceed as planned. As The Saturday Paper recently reported, a confidential briefing to Health Minister Mark Butler highlighted major issues with the readiness of the digital systems underpinning the reform — particularly the troubled Government Provider Management System (GPMS), which remains incomplete.

Designed to replace the outdated National Approved Provider System, GPMS was supposed to be the central digital platform for overseeing aged care providers. Instead, it has become a cautionary example of government IT failure, where vague goals, missed deadlines, and out-of-control contractor spending have derailed what should have been a straightforward transition.

At the core of the digital chaos is Salesforce, the US software firm awarded an initial $13.5 million contract in 2022. That figure has now blown out to more than $50 million. This comes in the wake of Salesforce’s involvement in a separate procurement controversy at the National Disability Insurance Agency, where undisclosed meetings and gifts to public officials triggered a Senate inquiry. Despite this, the company continues to win lucrative Commonwealth contracts.

Other major consulting firms involved in the digital rollout have seen their earnings soar. Capgemini’s contract, largely focused on Salesforce support, has more than doubled to $73.4 million. Accenture has emerged as the biggest winner, with contracts for aged care digital transformation now exceeding $450 million. Meanwhile, IT firms Wipro, Kyndryl and others have had their agreements quietly extended and significantly revised.

The mounting cost of this digital build-out has raised alarm about whether the public is receiving any real return on investment. What began as a well-intentioned effort to modernise the sector has turned into a sprawling procurement project with little clarity and ballooning bills. When taxpayer money is not treated with care, it becomes easy for departments to greenlight excessive contract variations. But this comes at the expense of frontline services, trust in the system, and the timely delivery of reform.

Worse still, many aged care providers — especially smaller and regional ones — are still not ready for the rollout. A departmental assessment commissioned earlier this year found that many services were struggling to align with the new digital platforms. The Business-to-Government (B2G) Gateway, a key piece of infrastructure designed for real-time data exchange, is still not functional.

Multiple internal reviews have confirmed these shortcomings. As far back as 2022, the Morrison government’s own gateway review warned that GPMS and B2G were veering off track. A second review in 2023 under Labor revealed that the same issues had only deepened. Despite these red flags, more money was committed to future phases of the rollout — even before the first was delivered.

This has led to a scenario where providers are confused about their obligations, core components of the reform are non-operational, and the only consistent outcome is more public money flowing to private contractors. The department’s claim that GPMS is “live” has done little to reassure the sector, given that many key features are missing or poorly integrated.

In the absence of a functioning digital platform, even basic reforms like the aged care star ratings system had to be implemented using email-based workarounds. The vision of real-time monitoring and transparency, so vital to restoring faith in aged care, remains unrealised.

What was meant to be a transformative moment for aged care has instead exposed deep cracks in the way large-scale IT projects are delivered in Australia. If even a fraction of this money had been directed towards increasing staff numbers, improving facilities or enriching programs for older Australians, the impact would have been tangible.

Now, with the revised start date fast approaching, aged care providers are once again preparing for the possibility of another delay. The success of the government’s most ambitious reform in aged care now hinges not on political will or legislative preparedness, but on whether a messy and over-commercialised IT project can finally deliver on its promises.