Konrad Walser
tigation into the issue of procurement conducted by the finance delegation from the Swiss federal councils are addressed in the following section.
In 2010, a survey had already shown that a significant volume of contracts, particularly in the area of expert contracts, had been awarded by private contract, and that the federal law on public procurement had not been complied with in every case. At the end of 2011, the Federal Assembly submitted the planned measures for improvement to the Findel: the instruments of public procurement should be improved, DRC defined more precisely, and the controlling function expanded. Findel welcomed the measures for improvement, but insisted on the creation of a nationwide solution. An announcement on the parliamentary website( cf. source above) further documents the investigations of the Findel as follows. During an informational visit to the Federal Tax Administration( FTA) and a discussion with representatives from the FMF, the Findel was informed about the status of the Insieme IT project. It noted with concern that new drastic changes had to be made in project management. After three years, the project architecture was reviewed again and the remaining financial conditions could only cover the elementary project objectives. Although the FTA strives to comply with the deadlines and financial conditions, this is at the expense of strongly reduced project and requirement objectives. In particular, the fundamental idea of the project, namely to unite the processes across the entire FTA, is threatened( cf. parliamentary service of the Swiss Confederation 2012). The annual report from the Findel draws the following conclusions about the Insieme project: The project aims to cover a whole range of additional functionalities, and to integrate a variety of further decentralised IT solutions into the new system. Shortly after the start of the project, there were major problems in the collaboration between the appointed external companies that ultimately led to the abandonment and then restart of the project. Even the second attempt at the project encountered significant difficulties, as an EFK audit from 2009 shows( cf. source above). In particular, the EFK considered the project organisation and project management to be inadequate. An informational visit in 2011 showed that, since autumn 2010, the situation had not improved, but instead had actually worsened. Drastic changes were again made to project management. Key decisions, such as the underlying project architecture, were challenged again after the project had been running for three years. The finance delegation was particularly concerned about the fact that the finances which remained could only cover the elementary project objectives. From the finance delegation ' s perspective, the significant efficiency benefits planned by the FTA – fewer interfaces, prevention of duplications, reduced error rate etc. – are questionable. In autumn 2011, the following was revealed in an audit. The problem areas confirmed the finance delegation ' s unease. The project ' s fundamental aim to unite the processes throughout the FTA was no longer ensured, as project objectives had been heavily curtailed. Furthermore, the sizeable heterogeneity and lack of internal specialist competence was complicating project management. The EFK also identified significant inconsistencies in the procurement function that led to the recommendation to initiate an administrative investigation.
It can be concluded that, the project failed to balance deployment of resources, deadlines and functionalities. The finance delegation was very concerned about the project status.“ Once again it is evident that the federal government is unable to cope with handling projects of this scale. Important questions of management and financial responsibility are not clearly defined in the FTA”. It can be concluded that various external bodies had drawn attention to the shortcomings. However, management of the department had failed, over a very long period of time, to take any measures to end the questionable activities. The governance was dysfunctional for long periods of time. There were evidently no CaB or routines in place that could have put an end to the behaviour of the guilty employees. The structures outlined above for negotiating a business case did not exist, nor did structures for complying with / executing it.
5. Conclusions on project governance based on the model
The following can be quoted as a key sentence regarding project governance from the 2011 annual report of the Findel, which states the circumstances as they are:“ Important questions about management and financial responsibility within the FTA are not clearly defined, the project has lasted too long and important aspects of the project architecture have been repeatedly called into question.“ Based on this project and the latest developments around it, the CaB criticised in this article and their deficiencies can be analysed on the basis of documents without any direct internal knowledge of the project. There are governance rules relating to tenders for procurement, but nobody internally takes responsibility for enforcing these rules. There are evidently mechanisms by which misconduct is established and criticised( internal indicators within the department, EFK, finance delegation of the federal councils), but it is clear that nobody assumes responsibility for making correc‐
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