The Australian Tax Office spent $150,000 on a leadership conference to "reinvent" its technology team just weeks before a major crash brought down the agency's website and internal systems.
More than 200 senior staff enjoyed lunch and a three-course dinner at Canberra's swanky QT Hotel in November as they watched presentations from internal and external technology experts.
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ATO loses a million gigabytes of data
The Australian Tax Office's systems are fully restored after a crash, but the ATO is trying to recover a million gigabytes of data. Vision courtesy Channel 7's Sunrise.
In response to questions on notice from Labor senator Catryna Bilyk, Revenue and Financial Services Minister Kelly O'Dwyer confirmed taxpayers' total expenditure on the event was $150,299.
Almost $68,000 was spent on venue hire and food for the two-day forum, including lunch, three-course dinner, cake for morning and afternoon tea and a selection of tea, coffee and soft drinks.
A further $50,000 was spent on "facilitation of leadership activities", while the agency also forked out $22,819 for audio/visual equipment and $9000 for a guest speaker on technology leadership.
The conference was attended by 232 leadership staff from the ATO's Enterprise Solution and Technology (EST) group, ranging from Executive Level 1 to senior executives.
An ATO spokesperson said the aim of the forum was "to bring together the EST leadership team to discuss how we will support the ATO's reinvention".
"Key topics included the client experience, culture and engagement, and IT planning to support our business direction," the spokesperson said.
Swaths of ATO officials were unable to use their computers this week after a crash brought down its internal systems and customer-facing website on Monday. It took more than two days to fix.
The problem occurred in the agency's data storage network and Chief Information Officer Steve Hamilton described it as "the first time this problem has been encountered anywhere in the world".
No taxpayer information had been compromised and no data had been lost, he said. But by Thursday morning there remained "a significant amount of work" to be done to fully restore the system.
The embarrassing failure means thousands of Australians hoping to receive their tax refund before Christmas may miss out, with the ATO unable to guarantee they would be processed in time.
The Institute of Public Accountants lashed out at the agency over serial frustrations with its IT systems, claiming productivity loss, missed deadlines, irrecoverable costs and reputational damage.
"We are constantly being reassured by the ATO that it will fix its system going forward . . . these reassurances are now falling on deaf ears," IPA chief executive Andrew Conway said on Wednesday.