Ministry to purchase Curam software for Client Management System

29 September 2006
For Immediate Release
 

The Ministry of Social Development today announced it will be purchasing Curam software for its new Client Management System.

"A comprehensive Proof of Concept process has been conducted to ensure that Curam is the right software to deliver real improvements for the way Work and Income staff work with clients," said Patricia Reade, Ministry Deputy Chief Executive Work and Income.

"The Ministry currently manages seven core systems which each deliver certain components for various Work and Income services.  These systems are stable, reliable and supportable into the future.  However, they do not support a client outcome-focus.

"Work and Income's IT system design has been centred on product and payments that operate well in delivering benefit payments.  However, Curam offers Work and Income a range of opportunities including:

• A more client-centric, flexible system that is able to manage contacts, relationships, and services and programmes, as well as payments.
• The implementation of a rules approach to support access to services and programmes, in addition to the assessment of entitlement to benefits and payments.
• A reduction in the time and costs associated with implementing policy decisions.
• Enabling, where appropriate, the integration of client data across different parts of the Ministry and potentially across different agencies.
• Allowing the Ministry to move away from its current mainframe system over time, to more modern systems that can maintained in-house at a reduced cost.

"Curam's Client Management System will make a huge difference to the way our staff can work with clients by allowing more effective client interaction, reduced processing time and helping ensure clients receive the right services at the right time," said Patricia Reade.

Curam Software was established in 1990 and has a singular focus on delivering software products to the social services sector and is regarded as a global leader in the marketplace. 

"For the latter stages of the Proof of Concept process the Ministry has partnered with HP New Zealand as its Systems Implementation partner.  We are very pleased to announce that HP New Zealand will continue to work with us as we implement the Curam system," said Tim Occleshaw, Ministry Chief Information Officer.

"The $54 million cost of the project will be met out of the Ministry's baseline.  No additional funding is required from government.

"The Ministry plans to establish the Curam platform and implement the first phase of the Client Management System by the end of 2007.  We will progressively evolve away from existing systems in 2008 but the scale and scope will be determined by business needs and what is affordable.

"Our intention is to implement the functionality of the Ministry's legacy systems in Curam progressively over several years.  For the time being, the Ministry will retain its payment engine known as SWIFTT.  While the SWIFTT interface may eventually no longer be used by frontline staff, its functionality for collecting data and translating this into payment data for use by banks will be retained," said Tim Occleshaw.

"The implementation of an electronic client management system for Work and Income complements the new work focused service delivery model introduced earlier this year.  Curam will be an invaluable tool in helping even more New Zealanders into work," said Patricia Reade.

For further information: Jane Mortlock, Media Advisor, on 04 9163496.