Page 4088 - Week 13 - Thursday, 2 December 2021
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On 22 June this year, I advised the Assembly that the government would commission an independent review of the ChooseCBR program. The review was to look at design and implementation, analyse the spread of activity across businesses and consumers, and evaluate its impact as a stimulus to business activity. As a former second commissioner of taxation in the Australian Taxation Office, together with many other roles, David Butler was well placed to conduct the review. He has considerable expertise in the delivery of information technology change, and has been frequently engaged as a lead reviewer for performance improvement framework reviews of New Zealand government departments as well as several reviews for Australian government departments and agencies.
This report is public, as tabled today, so members can read the report in its entirety. However, I am pleased to provide the following summary comments.
The review found that ChooseCBR was efficient and effective at delivering the government’s key objective of stimulating economic activity during a difficult period. More than 30,000 Canberrans redeemed more than 85,000 discounts at close to 800 small and medium businesses.
In accordance with the terms of reference, the consultant investigated the technical issues experienced in the full rollout of the scheme. The review notes that it is difficult to determine whether specific additional testing of the system prior to the rollout could have identified the root cause of the problems which materialised. As members will recall, we had anticipated that demand would be stronger in the full rollout than it was in the trial, and we did ensure that server capacity was increased to address the capacity issues experienced in the trial. A suite of functional testing, including account registration, voucher redemption and feedback submission, was also carried out on the site before the rollout.
The technical issues that occurred on 9 June were distinct from those in the trial. The review identifies that they related to the structure and design of the database. Given the high volume of transactions immediately experienced when the rollout commenced, they impacted on the efficiency of each transaction and slowed down performance.
The review concludes that while it was disappointing for businesses and participants that the rollout had to be paused, given the complexity of the technical issues faced, there was no other option than to stop, assess what was happening and fix the problem. The review identifies that once the technical issues were understood, and changes made and tested, the web-based application performed very well, with a significant number of transactions being processed in a very short period. That goes to the fact that the demand was maintained despite having to pause the program.
Importantly, particularly given discussion in the media and in this place, I can advise members that the review concludes that there is no evidence of systemic misuse of the scheme.
In relation to program administration, the review observed that there were several features implemented that strengthened the program’s integrity. These included
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