Infosys received another $71.6 million for its work on Centrelink’s new payment settlement engine after completing a 14-month initial build phase last year.
The contract, released late last month, pushes the overall refurbishment value to at least $ 135.4 million since the outsourcing giant beat IBM and Accenture under its original umbrella deal.
Infosys has been developing the Pegasystems-based Entitlement Calculation Engine (ECE) solution since November 2019 when it was awarded an initial $18.4 million contract for proof-of-design work.
ECE will replace an existing solution built into Centrelink’s former Integrated Income Security System (ISIS) used to determine social assistance recipient eligibility and amount payable.
It is the latest part of Centrelink’s lengthy payments review, known as the Welfare Payment Infrastructure Transformation Program (WPIT), which will officially conclude at the end of this financial year.
A spokesperson for Services Australia said the new contract covers “programme increment (PI)-1, the initial delivery phase, which is the next increment of the ECE project”, following on from a $42 million contract last year.
Services Australia renegotiated the framework agreement with Infosys last year to adopt a more phased delivery model that would allow for closer planning and monitoring of the construction phase
“In this increment, Infosys will provide additional resources, training and support to Services Australia,” the spokesperson said.
The contract covers a 45-week period between November 2021 and September 2022, meaning Infosys will be paid nearly $1.6 million a week — or about $6.4 million a month — for the work.
Services Australia would not say how many contractors are working on the project or divulge the total cost of the build to date, saying only that “expenditure remains in line with original budget estimates”.
The contract for the initial delivery phase comes just a few months after Infosys completed the first phase of construction in September 2021.
The build officially began in July 2020 following a seven-month proof-of-design that involved reimagining the existing solution and decoupling the business rules from ISIS.
As Charles McHardie, now chief information and digital officer, revealed in October 2021, Infosys has proven that Pega-based ECE can work in a non-production environment and at scale.
“Services Australia had commended planning and preparation work for the next phase of the build, and expected this milestone to be completed for mid-2022,’ he said
At the time he said once this phase is complete, approximately half of Centrelink program outlays will then be calculated in the new entitlements calculation engine.
“This will establish technological capability that is reusable across government.
“It will allow ECE to undertake rules simulation to better inform budget costings and the service delivery aspect of future policy changes.”
In addition to the new $71.6 million contract, Infosys has secured three other work orders to date, valued at $63.8 million.
The company also secured a $37.3 million contract to reuse the ECE solution with Services Australia in February 2021.
In 2020, the government set aside in excess of $500 million in the federal budget for the (WPIT) program.
