The Australian Electoral Commission is set to replace the payroll system it uses to compensate the more than 100,000 temporary workers iemployed during federal elections.
The payroll system replacement is part of a broader – and ongoing – once-in-a-generation core IT systems overhaul – codenamed Indigo – that will ultimately replace 93 systems over seven years.
In a tender published this week, the AEC said it wants to modernise how it pays its temporary election workforce (TEW)”.
“To accomplish this, funding has been allocated to decommission the legacy AEC Pay (payroll) system and to replace it with a new TEW payroll management capability solution,” the agency said.
“This modernisation is critical as the existing system is overly dependent on bespoke applications and vendor support, with escalating sustainment costs.
“The AEC’s bespoke legacy systems are in a position where upgrading them is unsustainable and retention of the licenses does not represent value for money.”
The AEC said that during last year’s federal election, it employed “approximately 105,000” temporary staff, including “over 87,000” that worked on polling day and “over 18,200” that worked more than one (temporary) job.
“The temporary election workforce is paid on a weekly basis,” it said in tender documents.
“During the 2022 federal event, more than 190,000 payslips were produced with a weekly payslip range from 10 to over 97,000.”
The commission is hoping to source a software-as-a-service payroll system to replace the existing system.
The tender documents stipulate the new system must be hosted in a public or private cloud, with all data to be held within Australia, and able to support national, state and divisional offices.
The hosting solution is to comply with the DTA’s Hosting Certification Framework, meaning it will be Australian owned and operated, and meet “Assured” level certification.
The AEC is also seeking mobile capabilities, and if that involves app development, the app should be available on relevant app stores.
The payroll system replacement is the sixth and final work package in the first tranche of Indigo.
In August last year, the AEC launched the first request for information for tranche two of Indigo.
That tranche will involve replacing the AEC’s three core election management systems: the election management system (ELMS), the roll management system (RMANS) and the general enrolment election support information system (GENESIS).