Auditor-General Andrew Blaskett raised concerns about the Education Management Systems’ cost and implementation in a report tabled in state Parliament on Tuesday.

The report said the EMS began rolling out to SA schools and pre-schools in 2018/19 with aims “to capture all student information in a single record, standardise business processes and replace legacy systems”.

EMS intended to collate student “with tools to communicate and measure their educational progress”, while standardising the different business and financial processes in use throughout the public school system.

“We have been following the EMS project since it started, and have raised concerns in the past about completing it on time,” the report said, with a recent review reinforcing those concerns.

The Auditor-General said the project was originally costed at $130 million and expected to be delivered to around 900 sites by June 2023, but both the budget and timeframe had blown out significantly.

“The EMS project is expected to be completed three years later than originally planned and the project budget has increased by $47 million,” the Auditor-General wrote.

“At the time of reporting, the Department for Education was preparing a request for further internal funding.”

The report said that while most of the core system functionality had been delivered to schools, “extra time has been needed to customise EMS to meet requirements that were not originally specified”.

While Covid-19 had played a part in delays, its budget impact had not been measured. EMS rollout management had been an issue.

“Weaknesses in project governance have been a contributing factor,” the report said.

“Project governance controls should be agreed with key stakeholders, properly documented and maintained as the project progresses.”

The report said the EMS rollout had encountered various challenges and delays, including several unplanned software upgrades to improve functionality.

“We found that DfE had not identified which EMS functions were mandatory for all sites, and which were not core functions and would therefore be optional,” it said.

“(The department) advised us that it has been challenging and time-consuming negotiating with sites to migrate off some of their  legacy systems.”

The Auditor-General said that at the end of  2023, the department advised that it had rolled EMS out 454 sites (314 preschools  and 140 schools) – only 51 per cent of the total first announced.

“The EMS project implementation time frame  has now been extended until the end of 2025‐26.”

In a statement to InDaily, Education Minister Blair Boyer said there was “no doubt that the delivery of the Education Management System (EMS) under the former government ran into problems”.

“COVID-19 exacerbated project delivery with significant restrictions requiring changes to the project,” he said.

“Since becoming the Minister for Education, the Department for Education has reset the project to get it back on track. This has involved greater oversight of the project and a more realistic scoping of the project to ensure school and preschool expectations are met.

“As at the start of 2022, the EMS was deployed to 232 sites. To date, the deployment has now reached 433 sites. As part of the expedited approach, the project team will deploy at a rate of five sites per week which will ensure full completion by the end of 2025.

“I welcome the Auditor-General’s findings and recommendations and am assured by the Chief Executive that all the recommendations are being acted on as part of the project’s reset.

“The delivery of a new EMS will be transformative for our schools and preschools, replacing 30 year old legacy systems which will enable paperless processing and seamless access to student data in real time such as non-attendance and wellbeing – that’s why I’m determined to make sure it is delivered.”