After spending six years and more than $7 million in taxpayers’ money, the State Government has abandoned an IT project which was meant to fix long-standing problems in the payment of state concessions.

The Concessions and Seniors Information System (CASIS), repeatedly criticised by the Auditor-General, has been scrapped after the developer, ac3, told the Government it was no longer in the business of developing software.

The Government will now attempt to create a new system after giving up on the constantly troubled project that was originally meant to cost just $600,000.

Minister for Communities and Social Inclusion, Zoe Bettison, told InDaily today that she would be seeking answers from her department about the management of the project.

She also revealed the Government was “pursuing its legal options in regard to ac3”, which has been paid more than $2 million for its work on CASIS since 2013.

ac3 refused to comment.

The abandonment of CASIS effectively means the millions spent on the project have been wasted – but the real costs to the taxpayer are likely to be much higher.

The Auditor-General’s report in 2014 found that the Government had been unable to properly reconcile concession payments, leading to hundreds of customers being overpaid.

And these problems are long-standing, with the concessions system first questioned by the Auditor-General in 2009-10.

The Government revealed last year that the development cost of CASIS had reached $5.8 million.

The Government revealed today that the costs had ballooned to $7.183 million.

The actual cost in 2014-15 was $1.375 million.

Bettison told InDaily in she was disappointed with the way the project had been managed and she would be demanding answers.

“Following the withdrawal of software developer ac3 from the project, the State Government has been forced to pursue different options to the CASIS system,” she said in a statement.

“As the responsible Minister, I cannot justify pursuing CASIS any further.

“Unfortunately, these types of large-scale IT projects often come with inherent risks, as the Commonwealth is currently experiencing with its attempts to overhaul the Centrelink IT system and the NSW Government with its education IT system.

“I’m really disappointed at the way this project has been managed and I’m seeking explanations from the department over many of the key issues that affected this outcome.

“I will also be exploring all of the State Government’s legal options in regard to this matter.”

Minister Zoe Bettison

InDaily understands that the new attempt to wrangle the concessions system will be a hybrid of off-the-shelf and custom software.

The Government also insists that problems with the reconciliation of concession payments identified by the Auditor-General have been fixed via a new “semi-automated” process.

The troubled project began as an attempt to combine seniors’ cards and other concessions into a single client record.

Bettison said that since the CASIS project began in 2009, cheaper and more efficient options have become available and “these are being utilised to streamline the State Government’s suite of concessions”.

This statement raises questions about why the Government continued to throw money and resources at CASIS over so many years, despite repeated failures to get the system up and running.

Bettison revealed 12 months ago that her department was unable to match 5173 concession payment records held by government with those provided by energy retailers.

An InDaily investigation last year revealed that department insiders believe the over-payment of energy concessions was just the tip of the iceberg.

CASIS isn’t the only troubled IT project in the Auditor-General’s sights – nor is the most expensive, with heavily criticised patient health records system, EPAS, costing more than $400 million.