Minister told of welfare payment system challenges in memo before program rolled out

A memo noting "significant challenges" with a newdisability and welfare payment system reached Ontario's communityand social services minister two weeks before the problem-riddled,$300-million computer program was launched, The Canadian Press haslearned.

HelenaJaczekhassaidnooneinformedheraboutthesystem'stroubles before it was rolled out.

Weeks after the Social Assistance Management System was launchedin November 2014, serious defects and performance issues becamepublic -- it erroneously queued up $20 million in overpayments --$382,000 of that was actually paid out.

Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk said in her annual report late lastyear that the SAMS executive committee, which included the deputyminister and three assistant deputy ministers, knew there wereproblems with the program before its launch, but they rolled it outanyway.

When Jaczek was asked, following the report, if anyone hadinformed her of the problems with SAMS before its launch, shereplied, "Nobody told me."

But on Nov. 1, about 10 days before SAMS' launch date, documentsobtained by The Canadian Press through a Freedom of Informationrequest show that the minister received an email that included amemo from the team leader noting the preparation had not gonecompletely smoothly.

"I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that there have beensignificant challenges both with the development of the solution andwith site readiness," Martin Thumm wrote.

"However, this was not unexpected in such a large and complexmodernization initiative, and in every instance we have workedtogether to overcome these challenges."

Jaczek said in a statement Tuesday that there are always concernswith new systems, but the memo indicated they had been resolved.

"It was not until after SAMS went live that it was clear thatthe problems were beyond these typical challenges," she said.

Most issues now fixed

Lysyk found there were problems that had not been resolved whenthe system went live, and more continued to pile up. As of July,there were 771 serious defects outstanding and not all had beenidentified, she said. There was a backlog of about 11,500 calls fromthe help desk and it was taking the ministry an average of 40 daysto fix a serious defect.

Since then the ministry has said most of the issues have beenfixed, including all of the priority ones.

The executive committee knew that pilot testing with data fromthe old system was never conducted, "so it was not known if SAMSwould work as fully intended when launched," the auditor found.

Sixteen per cent of SAMS' functions were not tested and of thefunctions that were tested, the failure rate was one in eight, Lysykadded.

In addition to what Jaczek's deputy and assistant deputyministers knew about the SAMS issues and the memo noting
"significant challenges," the union representing the front-linecaseworkers warned the minister for months that the system wouldcause problems for staff and clients.

Cost has climbed to close to $300 million

Included in that same email containing Thumm's memo, an OntarioPublic Service Employees Union representative sent a warning toJaczek and other ministry officials.

"You have implemented and rolled out SAMS knowing that there area lot of concerns with the system and our members being ready,"Roxanne Barnes wrote.

"Will we see another failure of another system in MCSS (Ministryof Community and Social Services), costing the tax payers millionsof dollars?"

SAMS was to cost about $240 million, but the government has hadto spend an extra $52 million on fixes, bringing the total costclose to $300 million.

Three days after receiving that email, Jaczek told a legislativecommittee, "I feel fairly confident that the new system will have apretty seamless roll-out next week."