DAMNING ANAO REPORT ON NDIA BOARD
Whitewashing and Silence
The ANAO Audit Report on the Effectiveness of the NDIA Board is damning - for the NDIA, the bureaucracy, the government - and the ANAO itself.
It is damning for what it doesn’t talk about.
In an age of digital disruption, when technology is breaking and making whole industries and economies - for an Agency and Board sitting atop of a Scheme that for over the past decade has distributed hundreds of billions of dollars in payments - how strange it is that the ANAO is silent on the appropriate posture, capability and makeup of the NDIA Board in confronting these extraordinary technological driven challenges fracturing over the next decade.
There is nowhere to hide.
The symptoms of this disruption are everywhere: data breaches; data defects; inability to report or analyse; intractable defective systems; cyber vulnerabilities; criminal infiltration; lack of payment integrity; payment disruptions; and ultimately and predictably - harm. I speak with considerable expertise on these areas from decades of experience.
Instead, the ANAO amuses itself with absurd minutiae - talking about templates for Board papers and who attended what Board meeting.
And yet the challenge of digital disruption to corporate governance and the makeup and skills of Boards is well known. It is one of the most highly examined topics of Boards, AICD, Business Schools and international research organisations such as MIT and Harvard.
So why the ANAO silence?
Is the ANAO itself not conversant with the impact of technology and digital disruption on corporate governance and the markets affected?Is the ANAO itself not conversant with the impact of technology and digital disruption on corporate governance and the markets affected?
No one on the NDIA board or sub committees has technology expertise. The Board as a governing body does not have the capability and wherewithal to ask questions AND to detect bureaucratic and marketing BS - but what we do see from this ANAO report, is that the Agency also doesn’t provide adequate information for due diligence and governance.
This is literally a governance black hole in the most disruptive and challenging of fields: digital technology. Add in algorithms and AI for an unfettered disaster in the making.
While the ANAO audit report mentions PACE and Salesforce, there is not one mention of the elephant in the Board Room.
The elephant in the Board Room
The NDIA Board is incapable of providing the necessary oversight and risk management over the algorithmic experimentation the NDIA is embarking upon - with neither the scientific nor technology expertise nor ethics protocols. This has to be verging on Misfeasance.
The NDIA is building novel algorithms - the Budget Calculation Instrument - that don't currently exist anywhere in the world, and integrate it with its systems, that are known to be grossly defective, in an environment where data migration from SAP to PACE has not occurred, with zero capability and experience in ever having done this before. See previous commentary and submissions.
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https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ndis-rft-answered-marie-johnson-gaicd-unowe/
https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=48b82827-f39a-4bd4-8721-b119b07e3505&subId=756551
It's not just me saying this. Literally, thousands of people, organisations, esteemed academics, and advocates have substantiated these failings in submissions and articles, over the past decade.
And yet, voila, the ANAO says everything is sweet.
As recent as 18 months ago, the JSCNDIS found deep capability deficits across the entire NDIA; documented overwhelming complexity and evidence of a lack of NDIA organisational capability; significant cultural and capability deficits, including unlawfulness. An adversarial culture that traumatises people; and practices that are incompatible with the UNCRPD. Previous ANAO reports have been damning of the NDIA systems controls, risk management and payment integrity.
There is something seriously broken with NDIS systems. And the symptoms of serious malfunction are hiding in plain sight. Note, my submissions containing data, FOI information and expert commentary have been provided to the ANAO for this audit on the performance of the NDIA Board.Apparently, I was one of only four citizens to provide contributions - a fact I find very hard to believe. Surely there were more than four people who provided input to this critical audit.
This ANAO Audit report is utterly out of touch and out of kilter with global governance challenges in this era of digital disruption. And that is a big problem for the Australian Government and the economy.
We know that the NDIA NDIS systems defects and outages affect the entire disability sector, businesses, people employed, hundreds of thousands of Participants and their families - all up millions of people. The uncontrolled digital disruption unleashed by these defective systems is devastating the sector.
The ANAO should be damning of the NDIA Board’s incompetence: instead the ANAO satisfies itself with the minutiae of templates. Well, this expert is not buying that BS.
Why this white washing?
But Wait. There's More
What Did the NDIA Board Do About JSCNDIS Findings of Unlawfulness?
The JSCNDIS found that the NDIA had been operating UNLAWFULLY for a decade over the actuarial fiction of “primary disability”. The Board must have known of this fiction - and of the JSCNDIS findings. What did it do about it? And why the silence from the ANAO on this unlawfulness? Surely, a Board overseeing an organisation found to be operating unlawfully is noteworthy in an audit on the Board?
Lack of Due Process
In addition to the apparent silence of the NDIA Board and the ANAO on unlawfulness, there appears to be a lack of due process not only regarding procurement but also over the appointment of the Scheme Actuary.
Much has been written about the Salesforce procurement irregularities, with referrals to NACC and law enforcement. My own submissions talk about Salesforce in some detail and the inability of the NDIA to answer questions, all protected by Parliamentary Privilege.
In this ANAO audit at 3.71. are references to the Watt Review on procurement - references to Salesforce - and a “closed” board meeting. I could say a lot more here about conflicts of interest, but I refer interested readers to my protected submissions.
Call to Action
This whitewash of an audit report is not only a betrayal of NDIS Participants - and especially the many who have been harmed and died as a result of Robo cuts and cessation of services - but this ANAO audit of the NDIA Board betrays this critical sector which is in crisis, and the great many people who have invested in building legitimate businesses.
All is not all OK with the NDIA Board.
The whole sector should lobby the government, and all members of Parliament, with calls for a Parliamentary Inquiry into the capability of the ANAO to perform its function in this era of digital disruption.
We know from the RoboDebt Royal Commission, that the bureaucracy obstructed the Ombudsman’s investigations - and this fact only came to light via the Royal Commission.
Similarly, it seems that only a Royal Commission into the NDIA NDIS will have the powers to investigate the operations of the NDIA, including the apparent whitewashing that has happened with this audit.
How very odd that an audit report so apparently bland, was delayed for months over the election. Why?