SIRA Audited the Wreckage — Not the Collapse

How seven IT systems, disengaged scheme agents, and a blind transition created a disaster no one stopped.

When a system designed to protect injured workers collapses, most people assume someone must have seen it coming. That the regulator was watching. That early warnings were captured. That someone stepped in.

But that’s not what happened.

A Business NSW report confirmed that during the critical data-cleaning period, claim files were left dormant while staff from outgoing scheme agents took extended leave. The insurers' specified in this report are CGU and QBE. It's time icare told us all what really happened here.

Why?

Because, this occurred at the precise moment when data accuracy was essential for icare’s new platform. The timing could not have been worse — and the consequences were entirely predictable.

In NSW workers’ compensation, nobody intervened during the most dangerous transition in the scheme’s history.

In Shattered, we present testimony from someone who was inside icare at the time. Their recollection is stark: essential payments failing, premium errors spiralling, and staff watching systems break down faster than they could be repaired. What they describe is not misfortune. It is systemic collapse — unfolding in plain sight.

The outcome was not a gradual decline in claims management performance. It was an engineered collapse — structural, technological, and entirely predictable.

Here’s the thing: SIRA did audit the system — just not when it mattered.

They audited after the disaster, not before. And injured workers and businesses paid the price.

1. Before icare: seven incompatible IT systems, seven realities

Long before icare existed, WorkCover NSW outsourced claims management to seven separate scheme agents. Each ran its own IT system.

This is not speculation — it is in Hansard.

A WorkCover executive told Parliament:

Seven systems. Seven data structures. Seven ways of recording a single injury.

icare inherited all of them — and had already made the decision to unify everything into a single digital platform when the organisation was first formed.

2. The moment buy-in collapsed: insurers (scheme agents) learned they were being phased out

When icare unveiled its new single-provider claims model, it signalled the end of the scheme agents’ future role.

Overnight:

• their contracts became temporary

• their IT systems managing workers' compensation claims became obsolete

• their claim portfolios were being transferred

• their staff were preparing to exit

Yes there were transitional agreements but In organisational terms, this is when buy-in collapses.

And these weren’t small teams — they were businesses facing:

• restructures

• layoffs

• loss of revenue

• uncertainty

It is a well-recognised behavioural pattern: When an organisation knows it is being phased out, its attention turns inward.

Maintaining data accuracy for a system you won’t be part of? Investing in training?Protecting continuity?

It becomes nobody’s priority.

This happened at the exact moment icare needed scheme agents the most — during the most high-risk task of all: data cleaning.

3. The most dangerous task in the scheme’s history: “data cleaning”

Before icare could launch the Nominal Insurer Single Platform (NISP), all seven legacy systems had to be merged into one.

To prepare, scheme agents were instructed to “clean” their data.

Most people imagine this means something minor, like tidying up a spreadsheet. But data cleaning is not clerical housekeeping.

It is open-heart surgery on the system’s memory.

Scheme agents were required to:

• rewrite fields

• fix broken timelines

• standardise formats

• correct invalid dates

• reconcile medical reports

• close or reopen claims

• repair missing documents

In essence make sure files were accurate. Are you with us?

The entire success of the new platform depended on this step.

And then the September 2023 Business NSW report revealed something extraordinary:

This happened during the data-cleaning period — the specific moment when the system was least capable of absorbing oversight failure.

Claims were left unattended. Workers were waiting. Data was incomplete. And the system was still about to go live.

3A. What “data cleaning” actually means — a plain-language explanation

Because this phrase keeps coming up, and the public deserves a clear explanation:

If older systems recorded things differently —dates, injuries, payments, medical notes, employer details, doctor names, all of it had to be manually re-shaped so the new platform could understand it.

Now imagine doing this across:

• thousands of claims,

• from seven incompatible systems,

• during organisational upheaval,

• with staff leaving,

• other staff on extended leave,

• and businesses preparing to lose their contracts.

Here’s the critical part:

“Garbage in, garbage out” isn’t just a phrase — it’s a reality.

And when an algorithm is introduced (as icare did in 2018), it makes decisions based on whatever data it is fed — no matter how inaccurate.

This is how systemic harm begins:

• incorrect dates

• missing documents

• broken claim histories

• lost treatments

• misclassified injuries

• incorrect risk ratings

• people labelled “low touch” who needed urgent support

The system collapses not because of one big error, but because every small error compounds at scale.

And that is exactly what happened.

4. SIRA did not audit the transition — only the consequences

This is the heart of the failure.

There is:

• no public evidence SIRA examined the data-cleaning phase

• no evidence it monitored dormant claims

• no evidence it assessed the risk of agent disengagement

• no evidence it intervened before NISP launched

• no evidence it scrutinised the merging of seven systems

• no evidence it reviewed the algorithmic triage model

• no evidence it checked data accuracy during migration

• no evidence it assessed operational continuity

SIRA did audit —but they audited after the system collapsed, not during the collapse.

5. When SIRA finally looked, the disaster was already complete

The SIRA audit (reported by Business NSW) found:

Only 14% accuracy in basic “date claim made”

Injury management plans had only 21% compliance

Treating doctor contact compliance was 48%

Nearly 46% of claims were non-compliant — and icare classified this as “a lower order risk”

These are not random administrative issues. They are symptoms of a structural breakdown.

But by the time SIRA recorded these failures, the harm had already occurred:

• delayed treatments

• broken return-to-work paths

• lost income

• deteriorating mental health

• severe distress

• family hardship

Coronial findings in NSW and other states confirm that injured workers have died by suicide during compensation processes, with system-induced stress identified as a contributing factor in some cases.

This is not an allegation of intent. It is a recognition of systemic conditions that place vulnerable people under extreme pressure.

6. This was not a failure of intent — it was a failure of oversight

There is no evidence SIRA intended harm. No evidence of deliberate negligence.

The evidence instead shows:

• the regulator was structurally sidelined

• oversight powers were weakened after icare’s creation

• accountability became blurred

• transition risks were underestimated

• SIRA did not detect or act on the emerging collapse

This is about governance design, not individuals.

When systems fragment, incentives collapse, technology is rushed, and transitions occur without adequate supervision, the system itself begins to fail.

And injured workers and indeed businesses too bore the consequences.

7. The truth that has never been publicly acknowledged

For years, politicians and spokespeople have blamed:

• rising psychological claims

• “complex” injuries

• certification rates

• lawyers

• doctors

• premiums

• even workers themselves

But the evidence points elsewhere:

Seven incompatible systems. Staff disengagement. Dormant claims. Incomplete data preparation. A rushed platform launch. An algorithm built on corrupted inputs. A regulator that monitored the wreckage, not the transition.

This is the real story. And the public has never been told.

A system cannot heal until it acknowledges its own injury

This is not about blame — it is about truth.

Because the most dangerous thing about a system collapse is not the event itself.

It is the silence that follows.

And silence is the one thing injured workers and the businesses who fund this scheme — cannot afford any longer.

It's no longer about reform, it is about 'what the hell happened' and what are we going to do about all those lives that have been destroyed?