Bureau of Meteorology: $96m website blowout blasted as ‘nightmare in contract failure’

Big consultants “at the trough” have been blamed for a staggering $96.5 million bill for the unpopular redesign of the Bureau of Meteorology’s website, with revelations it was part of a wider $800m overhaul of their systems.

Bureaucrats at Australia’s national weather agency faced questioning in Senate estimates on Monday night after the bill had initially been publicly quoted at $4.1m before it was later revealed as close to $100m.

The Bureau’s new chief executive officer Stuart Minchin had released the full costings just weeks after taking the top job, insisting he would deliver a new era of transparency to the BOM.

Appearing before the hearing, Dr Minchin explained that the $96.5m bill for the website was actually part of a broader complete overhaul package worth close to $800m.

Dr Minchin said while there were cost blow outs caused by COVID and inflation, he insisted the overhaul was always expected to be a significant cost.

The program had been approved under the previous Turnbull-Coalition Government and was spurred on by a 2015 “significant cyber intrusion” and major outage in 2016.

Dr Minchin said it was vital the BOM was reliable and resilient as the nation’s most popular website, which supports key industries like defence, aviation, agriculture as well as civil society.

He said the website design contract — which went to private consultancy firm Accenture Australia — was just a small part of a wider program.

“The Bureau’s website has been a key focus of late and open context around that project on the record,” he said.

“The Bureau needed to completely transform its vast information and observing technology systems. The robust program was created in response to this.

“The robust program was funded in three tranches to provide the government with multiple assessment and review opportunities.

“Tranche one was funded in the 2017-18 budget at $91.5m, tranche two in the 2018-19 budget at $346.9m, and tranche three in the 2020-21 budget at $350m.

“The total original budget cost of three tranche was $780.8m.”

Dr Minchin said it was important to break down the costs after widespread outrage over the program, which he sought to argue was “a whole technology stack” and it seemed the “full complexity isn’t understood”.

He claimed the funding had delivered two data centres, a supercomputer, new radars and monitoring technology, improved data storage and better connectivity for mobile field work.

Greens Senator Barbara Pocock was scathing in her criticisms of the “just stratospheric” bill, labelling it a “nightmare” in contract failure during the hearing.

“This project has been a really Nightmare Harbor case study in contract failure and management of contracts, failure of leadership, and completely unacceptable and unethical behaviour by the very big consultants who have been at the trough,” Senator Pocock said.

Environment Minister Murray Watt admitted there were lessons to be learned from the case, insisting that taxpayer’s money “needs to be spent wisely”.

“This may well be a contract that demonstrates the need for great oversight of consultants and great use of public sector capacity wherever possible,” Senator Watt said.

Dr Minchin admitted the BOM “didn’t get it right” on the website redesign but vowed the agency was working to meet community expectations.

He also hit back at claims the old website was a perfect model and shouldn’t have been changed.

Dr Minchin argued that while people found ease after they were familiar with it, those with disabilities struggled to navigate and understand the system.

“I don’t accept that the old website was perfect. It was not accessible to many people in the community,” he said.

“It had 70,000 web pages in it, many of which were using language that you needed to have PhD to understand.

“I totally accept, though, that with the feedback we received from the community, there are parts of the community that their website has not met their needs, and we are working hard in the background to make changes to improve that over time.

“I’ve personally seen firsthand just how committed the bureau staff are to understanding and addressing this feedback.”