The Office of the Auditor General's report into the governance of Inland Revenue's business transformation programme notes that while the governors are being well informed, there still remains a risk that important aspects are buried, with governors not giving the full information enough attention.
“Some senior Inland Revenue staff told us that the duplication and amount of information, and the time available to read it, meant that they give the information less scrutiny than they would like,” the OAG reports.
It also notes particularly that there is no shared system to manage documents, which adds to the difficulties of sharing information.
Computerworld New Zealand asked the department why there was no shared system with a spokesperson saying Inland Revenue follows effective document management practices at a business unit level but that document management is not integrated across the organisation.
“The capability to manage content across Inland Revenue, given its diverse business and legislative requirements, has been recognised as a missing capability for some time, requiring a significant investment to remedy,” the spokesperson adds.
“An Information Management Strategy was approved in February this year. The technology stream of the strategy focuses on improving document management capability, and plans are being developed to implement it.
“A range of All-of-Government options will be investigated regarding their ability to provide the required capability.”
The spokesperson says that work has already begun in implementing foundational components that will support the deployment of tools to provide the capability to share documents and other content across the Inland Revenue.
“We have not yet identified a specific tool to provide the required capability,” the spokesperson adds.
“However, if a suitable tool was identified that could meet IR’s needs, and was prioritised accordingly, work could potentially commence on this project as early as April 2016.”