Services Australia has recently won the SAP Innovation Awards 2021– Adoption Hero category for implementing the Payment Delivery Capability project that created a new Payment Utility platform for Centrelink social welfare payments. This came about after the successful SAP S/4HANA migration of its legacy system.
Federal government agency Services Australia, responsible for delivering a range of health, social, and welfare payments and support services through Centrelink, Medicare, and Child Support, embarked on the welfare payments infrastructure transformation (WPIT) programme in 2015 as part of its modernisaiton initiatives. The billion-dollar project aims to enable the agency to deliver a flexible, modern welfare service delivery system by replacing its then-30-year-old Income Security Integrated System (ISIS) with SAP as the core solution provider.
Since the WPIT launch, Services Australia was able to streamline and digitise documentation and payment processes across the agency’s range of services including the deployment of a new Payment Utility– one of the two major IT replacements in the programme.
SAP S/4HANA Migration Enabling Real-Time Payments
A little over six months from the roll out of the new payments platform developed on SAP S/4HANA technology capability, Chief Transformation Officer Charles McHardie shared during a senate inquiry that almost all of Centrelink payments are now flowing through the centralised, SAP-based platform. He said:
“We’re just about to touch 90 percent of our Centrelink payments being paid through that new Payment Utility.”
The platform that delivers real-time payments was first utilised for the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme in July 2019. Amid the peak of COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the parenting allowance was delivered through the new system in September followed by the large cohort of age pension in November, which significantly accelerated the use of the platform. Initially designed as a white-label service, the SAP-based platform is slated to support other Services Australia delivery areas such as Medicare and Child Support in the near future.
Extending SAP Expertise to GovERP System Build
In May, Services Australia was announced to take over the build and delivery of GovERP, a modernised government technology for managing accounts, resources, and workforce. Pegged to be completed over the next two years, the project spearheaded by the Department of Finance will be leveraging the capabilities of SAP S/4HANA as the foundation of the GovERP. The the first instance of GovERP is anticipated to go live in September 2022.
According to McHardie, now that almost all of the payments are delivered through Payment Utility, Services Australia’s large IT workforce would have the opportunity to work on other SAP-based projects including the GovERP system build. He emphasised that the decision in having the agency assume the project is underpinned by its workforce’s SAP expertise that has been engaging on the Payments Utility project since 2017.
“Shortly we’ll be able to start winding off some of the workforce that worked on the [Payment Utility] program to be able to supplement the work in the GovERP program,” he said.
“Services Australia now has the largest SAP workforce in the Southern Hemisphere, and we drove over 500 SAP certifications into our APS workforce… from 2017 up until now. That has allowed us to successfully continue to deliver SAP projects that are managed and delivered by an SAP workforce that is led by public servants, supplemented by contractors,” he further explained.
The GovERP project will be supported by around 75 APS staff and 125 contractors coming across from the Department of Finance.
