Narrative Capture: when reporting stops showing the delivery evidence

Sometimes the risk is not that no one reports. It is that reports, advice and reviews keep moving while senior decision-makers receive an account that does not match the delivery evidence.

VIEW was Victoria's new fines-management system, formally the Victorian Infringements Enforcement Warrant system. The Department of Justice and Community Safety (DJCS) introduced it on 31 December 2017 to manage fines and support new fines-reform initiatives. The Victorian Auditor-General's Office (VAGO) later found that DJCS and the vendor knew by July 2017 that they could not deliver the required fines-processing functionality by launch, and that DJCS misunderstood what would be ready at go-live.

Formal reporting still continued. The steering committee received project reporting, and the Attorney-General received advice. But VAGO later found that key reports used for decision-making and briefing upwards did not accurately present VIEW's progress, and that steering committee advice and decision-making was ill-informed.

That is the condition this article calls Narrative Capture. The term is proposed here as pattern language, not as a VAGO category. It describes a governance disconnect where formal reporting continues, but the account reaching senior decision-makers no longer matches the delivery evidence. It does not require corruption or bad faith. In VIEW, VAGO records optimistic reporting, conflicted advice, incomplete testing evidence and review findings that did not reach the right forum.

Public contract-management guidance sets out controls intended to connect performance evidence with the people who can act on it. Australian Government guidance describes contract management as the work after signature that manages performance and corrective action. Queensland guidance links performance measures to thresholds, corrective action, remedies, escalation pathways and reporting responsibilities.

The advice reaching the Attorney-General did not state those limits clearly. VAGO said DJCS's reporting near launch was overly optimistic. It said this was partly due to inaccurate reporting from the vendor, the IT advisor hired from an external advisory firm and the project team. VAGO also said DJCS failed to accurately report known risks, and recommended launch despite the system not being fully tested, staff not being adequately trained and contingency arrangements not being in place if the launch failed.

The steering committee also received reporting that did not match the delivery evidence. VAGO recorded that January 2018 reporting said the project was 91 per cent complete and that mandatory functionality was live, while the public dashboard reported the project as green. VAGO said this reporting was inaccurate and misleading. It also said the inaccurate reporting contributed to the steering committee overestimating VIEW's functionality and readiness for launch, and to inaccurate advice to the Attorney-General.

The advice itself was also part of the disconnect. VAGO found that DJCS over-relied on a contracted IT advisor whose roles covered vendor procurement, project delivery and review or assurance of progress. VAGO said those multiple and conflicting roles significantly compromised the independence and quality of advice provided to the project steering committee. It also found that the IT advisor's reporting was overly optimistic, not evidence-based and misleading.

That does not make VIEW a simple vendor story. VAGO's record includes vendor reporting as one input. It also includes project reporting, advisor roles and assurance pathways. The issue is how those inputs reached the steering committee and the Attorney-General, not the personal conduct of any one actor.

The independent review process did not give the steering committee or DJCS executive a full view of the issues. VAGO said the senior responsible officer did not provide gateway reports to the project steering committee or DJCS executive. It said serious issues identified in the reviews were not communicated to a sufficient level of seniority for appropriate action to be taken. VAGO also said this limited DJCS's ability to oversee project performance and hindered the gateway reviews' function to raise issues early.

Narrative Capture, as used here, is not the claim that a vendor persuaded executives to believe a false story. The VIEW record supports a broader point. Reports and advice can keep moving while the account reaching the people authorised to act becomes less complete or less accurate, or the relevant findings do not reach them at all.

Public guidance points instead to roles, records, performance measures, stakeholder reporting, audit trails and escalation pathways that show decision-makers how the supplier is performing. Supplier relationships remain part of contract management and are not a substitute for performance evidence or independent assurance.

In VIEW, the positive reporting VAGO identified was not accompanied, in the upward advice, by the incomplete testing, risk-reporting gaps and gateway findings VAGO later recorded. When reporting is reassuring, the decision forum has to know what evidence supports it, what evidence does not yet support it and which review findings have not reached the table.

When reporting, advice and review findings are separated, governance can still look normal. There can still be reports, advisers, dashboards, committees and briefings. The test is whether those materials show the delivery evidence needed for the decision. In VIEW, VAGO found that they did not.

Sources

• Victorian Auditor-General's Office, Implementing a New Infringements Management System, 5 May 2021.
• Australian Government Department of Finance, Contract Management Guide.
• Queensland Government, Contract management guide.
• GOV.UK, Contract and Supplier Management.