VICTORIA — Budget pressures and critical problems processing child welfare cases led the B.C. government to quietly abandon much of what it promised for a new $182-million social welfare computer system.

The province’s Integrated Case Management computer system only does one-third of the work originally promised, Auditor General Carol Bellringer said in a report Tuesday.

Senior managers overseeing the project quietly jettisoned many planned features as they struggled to divert limited cash to fix problems handling child welfare cases, child care subsidies, autism funding and medical benefits within the new computer software, according to Bellringer’s report.

As a result, when the final version of the ICM system went online in November, it replaced only 17 provincial “legacy” computer systems of a promised 50, said Bellringer.

“The ICM project did not fully replace legacy systems as initially planned,” Bellringer wrote in the audit. “This means that a number of systems characterized as antiquated and expensive to maintain must continue to run.”

ICM dropped the ability to calculate eligibility and benefit payments for income assistance clients, as well as functions for calendars, scheduling, risk management, wait-list management and larger integration with the government network, Bellringer found.

The Liberal government launched the system in 2012, saying it would replace obsolete government computer systems that were at risk of failing.

It was also billed as a way to improve efficiency for front-line workers and better share information for 2.5 million income assistance, disability and child welfare cases across numerous ministries.

But it was immediately criticized by Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, Representative for Children and Youth, who said front-line social workers were overwhelmed with extra work caused by poorly designed software. Worse, the system was burying safety warnings for kids and domestic violence cases in areas that were difficult to find by authorities, said Turpel-Lafond.

The government commissioned its own investigation, and in 2013 the ICM project managers “invested significant effort and budget into stabilizing child welfare functionality,” wrote Bellringer.

“This shift in priority meant there was insufficient budget to completely move programs off the existing legacy systems.”

The government merged the fourth and fifth stages of the project together, and in a final November 2014 bulletin declared ICM “delivered on track, on time and on budget.”

“There’s no way that statement can be true,” said NDP critic Michelle Mungall.

She called it a “massive boondoggle” that the Liberal government has mismanaged from its inception in 2008.

Bellringer also raised red flags about lax security controls and duplicate case files within ICM. But those smaller problems were largely fixed with the final update in November, said Social Development and Social Innovation Minister Michelle Stilwell.

Stilwell said the ICM project was “ambitious” and hit some “growing pains” but “we have met our key objectives and successfully implemented a very modern platform.”

The overall cost remains largely unknown because government would not provide a breakdown of what it costs to keep running all the old computer systems ICM failed to replace, and what money was used from ministry operating budgets to troubleshoot and fix ICM’s problems.

Stilwell said she hopes to have those figures “in the next few months.”

The Vancouver Sun reported last May the government had spent almost $3 million over the last four years to fly staffers into Victoria, house them in hotels and pay their meals while testing the ICM system.

Turpel-Lafond said she thinks there will be “at least another $30 million” spent trying to fix the troubled system.

“I’m not even sure it’s completely fixable or fixed at this point,” she said.

Meanwhile, senior bureaucrats have nominated the ICM system for the annual Premier’s Award of Innovation and Excellence in the civil service.

“Nobody should be receiving a premier’s award for innovation for this,” said Turpel-Lafond. “That’s scandalous.”

rshaw@vancouversun.com

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