A multi-million-dollar program to modernise NSW’s licensing digital infrastructure is in turmoil amid significant delays and escalating costs.
The Licence NSW program was created to migrate over 100 licensing services into an integrated whole-of-government system powered by Calytera’s Amanda solution by this year.
However, documents seen by iTnews reveal that, despite receiving funding of almost $240 million, only a fraction of licensing systems have been successfully migrated and gone live in the new platform.
The Department of Customer Service (DCS), which is responsible for overseeing the program, is now preparing to request a further $130 million in order to complete the project by financial year 2029, iTnews understands.
Launched in 2021 with a $166.5 million investment from the Digital Restart Fund, the Licence NSW program was originally slated for completion by the end of 2025.
There are conflicting accounts for how many “licensing schemes” and license types have been migrated.
Some documents suggest four licensing schemes had transitioned from the state’s 20-year-old Siebel-based OneGov Government Licencing System (GLS) to the new Licence NSW platform by early 2024.
These include asbestos demolition for SafeWork, conveyancer licences for Fair Trading, individual security licences for NSW Police and recreational fishing fees for Primary Industries, paintballing, commercial agents, plant items, and plant design.
Another four from individual agency systems were also transferred, documents show, bringing the apparent total up to eight.
A conflicting 2023 evaluation report [pdf] of the program suggests 16 licence schemes had been transferred.
Late last week, Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government Jihad Dib told NSW Budget Estimates that “52 licences” – not schemes – “are being delivered to date”.
“We’ve still got 78 schemes that are being moved over.”
As of April 17, a DCS spokesperson clarified the numbers with iTnews, stating that 52 licenses – not schemes – have either been moved over to the new Licence NSW platform or were retired from the GLS.
The spokesperson said a further 78 licence types are set to be moved over to the new platform in FY2027 or retired from GLS, after which GLS will be decommissioned.
An ambitious vision
Licence NSW was originally designed to house over 130 industry and occupational licences in a government-wide platform boasting a “single view of customer” and “key integration functionality”.
Using the Amanda software platform, a dedicated out-of-the-box system for licensing and regulation, DCS had intended to simplify the application, renewal, and management of 9 million individual licences across 30 agencies.
Indeed, at the start of the program, it was stated the project would generate more than $600 million in economic benefits over 10 years, a figure now updated to $850 million, as revealed at NSW Budget Estimates on April 11.
However, according to the evaluation report, the program has struggled with significant challenges since its inception.
In particular, it noted, the business case underestimated the scale of transformation, and the level of support required for a digital uplift.
Developing and using a common set of components from Amanda for the licensing program also proved difficult due to a requirement for bespoke products from various regulators.
Indeed, it was assumed that 64 percent of the core Amanda product would be usable across all licensing schemes, with minimal customisation required.
However, as the program progressed, it became clear that significant customisation was needed for specific licensing schemes.
Spiralling costs
As costs spiralled, iTnews understands that DCS received a $10 million injection in November 2023 from its finance committee to maintain capital expenditure for an additional four months.
Internal documents indicate that the Licence NSW project was operating “at risk” as of February 2024. DCS was unable to comment on its current status at the time of publication.
In June 2024, DCS secured another $62.5 million in the NSW 2024-25 Budget [pdf] to complete the migration of 80 more licence types from GLS and individual agency platforms to Licence NSW by a revised deadline of 2026.
However, sources familiar with the program told iTnews that the full migration of the remaining 80 licence types by 2026 now appears highly unlikely.
Indeed, following the migration of recreational fishing in February 2024, no further migrations have been completed, as verified by documents and sources with knowledge of the program.
According to the timeline seen by iTnews, the Office of Sport is slated to go live this month, while the high-risk work scheme is likely to be migrated between May and July.
Meanwhile, NSW Police’s business security licences scheme and licences for real estate agents are earmarked for the end of 2026, although both schemes’ go-lives are marked as “tentative” on the timeline seen by iTnews.
The legacy GLS platform was also originally scheduled to be decommissioned in 2026.
In order to complete the program, now known as the Securing Benefits of Digital Licensing (SBoDL), iTnews understands that DCS is preparing to request an additional $133 million in what’s known as ‘parameter and technical adjustment’ funding to span between FY26 and FY29.
Internal documents show the department is also seeking $196 million in new policy proposal funding to support the operating model of Government Technology Platforms (GTP) — the division responsible for overseeing the Licence NSW program alongside other government-wide platforms, internal documents reveal.
DCS, however, was unable to comment on this by the time of publication.
Last year, the GTP department began undergoing an organisation-wide restructure.
According to a statement published by the PSA union in October, the plans saw “112 impacted ongoing GTP team members who will not be directly assigned to an ongoing role” due to “ongoing roles being moved to temporary to reduce financial risk and align with fiscal responsibilities” and the “reduction of roles in future structure”.
Update, 17/4 1.30pm: DCS clarified the number of licences migrated.
The department further said that the program “remains within budget” and has “so far delivered more than $198 million in economic benefits and is on track to deliver the full projected benefits of $852 million by FY2030.”
It did not address questions related to the requirement for additional funding.