Chamber of Commerce invested 15.5 million euros in ICT modernization project without result

The Chamber of Commerce has already invested more than 15.5 million euros in a modernization project of the Trade Register, while this has not yet led to a usable result. The project is in danger of failing.

This is set up by the Bureau ICT-Toetsing a report commissioned by Minister Wiebes of Economic Affairs. The BIT looked at the progress of the modernization project and drew firm conclusions about its costs, but also about the working method and the unclear results.

The BIT specifically looked at a program called Kern Gezond at the Chamber of Commerce. This was intended to bring together two large systems: the old National Mutation Program, or NMP, and the new Trade Register Domain, HRD for short. The latter system was started in 2010 and was to replace the old one from 1990. Instead of NMP being phased out, the two systems continued to exist side by side and many duplications arose. The Chamber of Commerce started Kern Gezond at the beginning of 2017, with the aim of phasing out NMP after all. The project was initially expected to last three years and cost 34.7 million euros. When the BIT started testing the project in October 2018, it had stretched to four years and 39 million euros.

According to the research agency, it is unclear what exactly the program was intended to achieve. “The documentation is unclear, project documents contradict each other about the goals of Kern Gezond”, the BIT writes in its report. “It is unclear when the program will be ready because results are formulated ‘highly over’.” The BIT writes that it took a lot of time ‘to understand what actually happens in the program.’ “We are quite shocked by Kern Healthy,” the report says.

One of the problems is that Kern Gezond is not only phasing out NMP, but is also further modernizing HRD. As a result, the new system will have a lot of new functionality, but ‘that is a doubling of the existing functionality.’ All kinds of subsystems and new products will also be created in the new system, which, according to the investigation committee, will again be given priority over the transfer of existing products.

There is also a lot to criticize about the program in terms of projects, says the BIT. The Chamber of Commerce does not have a good picture of the progress of the programme. Monthly development costs 800,000 euros and a total of 15.5 million euros has already been spent on the program. “Kern Gezond has barely delivered accepted software for this amount that contributes to the main goals of the program.” From an organizational point of view, Core Healthy is not efficient. Five teams of software developers are working on the system with about fifty external employees. Two of those teams work on HRD, but they do not consult with users or clients in the organization about what needs to be done. Requirements regarding privacy, security and performance have also not been considered. Therefore, parts of the work must be redone. “There is also no visible work being done on the promised improvements to data quality and privacy,” the BIT writes.

The Bureau advises the Chamber of Commerce to stop the program completely. Instead, the agency should focus on putting all data correctly into the newer HRD, while pulling the plug on NMP altogether. The internal approach of the project must also be streamlined with a single client and the advice is not to further develop additional activities in the systems.