There are major issues with two more big government IT projects, with one having to be revised after a negative rating and the other struggling to be restarted.

The latest problems come after mega-ministry MBIE wasted more than $30m on a failed biometric system that has sparked investigations in parliament.

One of the Justice Ministry's most important digital projects - to expand audio-visual links in courts - last year received a negative 'red' rating, meaning it "appears unachievable".

The ministry says it has revised the project, but is six to eight weeks away from revealing details. It was meant to have completed an early business case by this month.

The second project - to build a new system for people to access records for births, deaths and marriages - is also delayed for years.

The government chief digital officer - the watchdog of all public IT projects - has told ministers there must be more centralisation.

"Agencies' proposed digital investments continue to be siloed, duplicative and deliver little system benefit," the officer said in the latest available Treasury report, for the December 2025 quarter.

"Too many investments are overly large and span multi-years, rather than taking less risky, incremental investment and delivery approaches."

Amber-red second time round

Internal Affairs first attempted its Civil Registration project in 2024 but wrote off $213 million when that project was dumped. It confirmed this week it is still in dispute with the Australian company DWS over that.

After a second attempt, the fledgling new project received an amber/red rating in an independent 'Gateway' review in January, the department told RNZ on Tuesday.

"It received an amber/red rating, noting that the need for system replacement is compelling, but that more work is required before the IBC (indicative business case) to be ready to be submitted to government."

The department has still not decided what is needed and will not lay that out to Cabinet for approval until next year.

"The scope of any future civil registration replacement has not yet been determined. Options are being developed," it said.

Meantime, the old births-and-deaths system continues to limp along.

"While ageing, [it] is stable (although increasingly expensive to modify) and maintenance work continues to be undertaken to ensure secure, functional and legislative compliant systems."

'Continued lower confidence'

The courts and births-deaths projects are examples of chronic and persistent tech-building problems for the government, as it tries to both speed up and save on billions of dollars of demand for new digital systems.

Progress appeared to be slow.

"Investment initiatives submitted by agencies over the past six quarters point to continued lower confidence about their capacity and capability to deploy the internal expertise needed to support their projects," the government chief data steward told ministers, according to the latest available Treasury report, dated December 2025.

"Agencies are investing in modernisation, but underlying capability, standards adoption and lifecycle funding discipline remain uneven.

"Without sustained focus in these areas, the system risks increasing technical debt and cost pressures over time."

The government chief digital officer told chief executives last year to start pooling resources to build IT and stick to its standards under Cabinet's 'Back-Office Transformation' initiative.

The top IT officials and ministers had to get an early look at IT plans.

"This is critical to... the development of digital system assets that can be re-used by multiple agencies."

Revised approach

The Justice Ministry told RNZ that after it got the red rating in a Gateway review in May 2025, it revised the programme to strengthen its approach to delivering it.

Out of 10 high-risk big investments reviewed in the June 2025 quarter across public agencies, the ministry's remote participation project was the only one rated red.

"The next steps in the programme are currently under active consideration, and the ministry is not in a position to provide further detail."

The ministry and the government have expressed high hopes for several years that standardising use of AVL in courts would get many more cases heard on time and help fix the backlog. "Remote participation was invaluable during the pandemic," the ministry said on its website.

The project has now created its own backlog: The choice of tech was meant to have been finalised in early 2025. It requires a secure and reliable network and devices across many courts and tribunals.

Law changes in 2024 - and again this year -were designed to pave a path to more remote participation.

The Justice Ministry's wider digitisation programme Te Au Reka has been forecast to cost $170m.

'Largely delivered'

Internal Affairs said it was learning. "In developing options, we will be informed by the issues that arose through the phase 1 approach."

All current civil registration services remained operational, and customers continued to receive "the same service".

Civil registration had been split out from its wider $300m Te Ara Manaaki digital change programme, which closed at the end of June.

Te Ara Manaaki "largely delivered the majority of its scope", Internal Affairs told RNZ.

It received an amber-green rating on completion.

"The review noted that, while this phase of the programme had challenges, it was successful in delivering significant benefits. It also noted that the decision made to stop the Civil Registration 1.0 stream early should be commended."