Love the spin

Had to laugh at the spin by the Ministry of Justice about the new digital court management system. After Law News reported on it, they sent in an op ed which claimed:

LawNews’ September 30 article stated that the MoJ considered scrapping [the programme] in February 2025. This is incorrect.

Law News points out:

a workshop was conducted on February 4 that year to consider five options for the programme’s future. The fifth option was “Change to a Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) solution and change provider”. In other words, sack DXC and scrap the work done so far in favour of adopting a ready-made solution from another supplier. Ditching the work done so far was not only considered, it was actually ranked second best of the five options

The MOJ op ed continues:

The LawNews article also states that there have been budget blowouts. The programme’s cost profile has evolved over time, reflecting increased certainty as the programme progresses from procurement, through design and build. It is why contingency is part of the funding. Te Au Reka continues to operate within its financial approvals.

The statement “The cost profile has evolved over time” should win a prize for spin of the year.

Law News points out:

Te Au Reka is operating within its financial approvals, but those approvals needed to be increased by 15% in April 2025 because costs were higher than originally envisaged.

Inconvenient facts.

To be fair a 15% cost blowout is fairly minor when it comes to Govt IT projects, but one shouldn’t still try to spin it as not being a blowout.