Agencies are now dependent on an open architecture monster stack that won’t die and was last seen eating Big Four consultants whole.
The NSW auditor-general has taken a stick to the core systems underpinning the state’s immensely popular and world-renowned digital driver’s licence platform, warning the state government and Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW) that the giant ‘DRIVES’ registry rig is really based on creaky green screen technology. And there’s still no upgrade in sight.
In a distinctly Back to the Future moment for the state’s spending watchdog, it appears that one of the last remaining heavy-duty transactional platforms built by government for government (and first coded up in the late 1980s) is still powering-on, despite TfNSW spending $36 million trying to stand up a business case for a replacement — and failing miserably.