DistantNews
Support us
Tasmania Police terminates $6M KPMG contract over incomplete projects
🇦🇺 Australia /Crime & Justice

Tasmania Police terminates $6M KPMG contract over incomplete projects

From ABC Australia · () English

Translated from English and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Outcome reported
  • Tasmania Police ended a $6 million contract with KPMG due to delays and quality issues with unfinished digital projects.
  • The contract involved upgrades to an intelligence system called Atlas and the development of a crime reporting portal, Project Link.
  • Both parties are bound by confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses, preventing them from disclosing specific reasons for the termination.

Tasmania Police has terminated a significant digital contract with accounting firm KPMG, totaling over $6 million, citing incomplete projects marred by extensive delays and quality concerns. The termination comes after two years of work on critical systems, leaving the specifics of the fallout shrouded in confidentiality.

The engagement centered on upgrading an intelligence management system known as Atlas, which police had purchased in 2019. Despite being intended to enhance criminal intelligence capabilities, Commissioner Donna Adams described the system as "clunky," with officers spending up to 30 minutes to file intelligence. A subsequent $14.8 million contract was awarded to KPMG in 2024 to integrate Atlas and manage broader Project Unify upgrades.

KPMG received $5.4 million of the contract value before its termination in January, with initial payments totaling $1.3 million at signing and a further $654,000 to commence work. Tasmania Police confirmed no termination payment was made. The contract termination deed includes clauses preventing either party from making disparaging statements about the other, effectively silencing public discussion on the reasons behind the cancellation.

The system was not going to be up to what the community would expect in terms of submitting a minor crime report.

— Donna AdamsCommissioner Adams explaining the functionality issues with the Project Link crime reporting portal.

In addition to the Atlas upgrades, KPMG was also tasked with developing a public online crime reporting portal, Project Link, for which it received $637,000. This project also reportedly faced significant functionality issues and delays, failing to meet community expectations for submitting reports. It took Tasmania Police seven months to complete the portal after KPMG's departure, with it only going live this month.

Commissioner Adams stated that the project has been paused pending an independent review, emphasizing a commitment to ensuring future decisions are well-informed. The situation highlights challenges in large-scale IT projects within public services, where transparency is often limited by contractual obligations.

I'm not going to apologise for the fact that we've paused the project to make sure that our decision-making moving forward is going to set us up.

— Donna AdamsCommissioner Adams defending the decision to pause and review the project.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Australia in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

More Stories

From Our Blog