Centrelink's scrapped $191m ECE had processed just 784 claims

A $191 million entitlements calculation engine (ECE) built for Centrelink had processed just 784 claims by late June this year, before it was written off by the government a month later.

The Pega-based ECE was built by Infosys and was meant to “determine eligibility for welfare recipients and how much to pay them”, government services minister Bill Shorten said last month.

It was put to work briefly processing aged pension claims, but only in a “shadow” capacity where the existing calculation engine was running the same calculations in parallel.

The government pulled the pin on the ECE in late July, noting there was still “nothing to show for” the $191 million sunk into the project, in terms of a functional calculation engine.

Senate questions on notice [pdf], published late Wednesday, reveal the limited usage that ECE saw before it was junked.

“As at June 22 2023, 784 claims have been processed under the ECE project,” Services Australia revealed.

Services Australia also said that a “solutions design review” process for the ECE had been kicked off just before Christmas last year

A final report was “distributed to Services Australia senior executives for review and feedback,” the agency notes.

Services Australia also said that the ECE had been assigned $299.8 million in total funding under the welfare payment infrastructure transformation or WPIT program; it had spent $191 million of that before being axed.