In his final report, the commissioner, The Hon Richard Chesterman AO RFD QC, stated that "The replacement of the QH payroll system must take a place in the front rank of failures in public administration in this country.
CorpTech, a business unit of the Queensland Treasury, was established to "design and build a whole-of-government human resources and finance solution with a capital budget of $125 million."
Queensland Health was to be included in this whole-of-government platform, and by March 2006, management of the existing payroll system had been transferred to CorpTech.
By 1 July 2008, the former Queensland Health LATTICE payroll system had fallen out of support from the vendor and was effectively unsupported outside of in-house technical capabilities.
On 13 December 2012, the governor in council made order for the Queensland Health Payroll System Commission of Inquiry (QHPSCI).
The Inquiry sought to investigate and understand the factors that led to the failed payroll system implementation, and the extent of the damages to the Queensland Government and health staff.
The Queensland Health Payroll System Commission of Inquiry (QHPSCI) was established by order of the Governor in Council on 13 December 2012.
In his remarks at the directions hearing, Commissioner Chesterman explained the purpose of the inquiry "is to determine why such large amounts of money have been lost to the public, whether anything might be recovered; and why such distress was inflicted on the Queensland Health workforce.
During acceptance testing, a core component of the 'hand over' of the solution from IBM to Queensland Health, several thousand system and technical defects were found.
IBM was found to have significantly misrepresented the quality and integrity of the system, and had not resolved defects as claimed when it had progressed to final stage acceptance testing.
In the Commission of Inquiry, Queensland Health noted that IBM stated it could correct all defects that would affect pay accuracy.
According to the 2013 Commission of Inquiry, "the QH payroll system must take a place in the front rank of failures in public administration in this country".
[5] On 23 November 2010, the Queensland Government announced that it had settled with IBM and will spend $209 million over three years to resolve the payroll problems.