Out for the Count: Census $2016$:Every five years the Australian Bureau of Statistics $($ABS$)$ runs the official Australian census, collecting data from every household in Australia to help inform planning and to record our changing society. The information is used in a variety of ways including planning for infrastructure such as future schools and hospitals, recording how families and households are changing, and more broadly how Australian attitudes and practices evolve. The next Census will be held in August $2026.$On $9$ August $2016$ the Australian Census made headlines for all the wrong reasons. The ABS planned for a significant increase in households using the online information collecting process.However, on the night of the Census it was reported that the system had become overloaded and failed. Millions of Australians could not access the platform, flooding the call centres. Significant media coverage pointed the blame squarely on the ABS.it was an embarrassing failure for the As and the Australian Government Analysis by industry experts as well as the ABS on what caused the failure found the following contributing factors.ABS's own analysis $($ABS $2016)$ found:"In mid$-2014,$ IBM, one of the biggest global ICT companies was contracted to provide a relatively simple e$-$Census application, ensure the application was available to the public over the $8-$week Census response period, provide sufficient capacity to deal with the peak response load expected on Census night of August $9$ and ensure effective security for the e$-$Census system.The contract to IBM was worth around $$10$ million, within the total Census budget of around $$500$million." $($ABS $2016)$Other issues and project failures raised in the ABS analysis included:Funding constraints Funding constraintsTime left $0\mathrm{.}14$:$27$Extended years of Government fundings cuts to the ABS budget impacted staff numbers and project budgets. Budget concerns were so significant that in early $2016$ there were reports that the Census would not be able to go ahead as planned $($Duckett $2016).$Governance changesBetween $2011$ and $2016,$ there were three changes to the leadership of the ABS, seven different Government Ministers $($responsible for the ABS portfolio$),$ and four changes in Prime Ministers $($ABS $2016).$Limited Stakeholder EngagementABS tested their online data gathering process with a limited number of households. This led to an underestimate of the amount of backup support that would be required on the Census night.There were not enough people available to provide phone support to Australians, with over $3\mathrm{.}5$ million phone call attempts made to the ABS $($ABS $2016).$ Post event analysis found gaps in the communication strategy in the lead upfto Census night, resulting in many Australians being unaware of the process to follow for correctly completing their Census.Prioritising ABS' ReputationWhile the ABS is considered a Government agency, it is also considered to be an independent body. This helps to ensure confidence in the Australian public that the information collected won't be used to identify personal information or be influenced by the Government of the day.This reputation of independence was noted as a flaw in the project design, as the ABS did not engage with other Government departments with better skills, resourcing and technology to help with communication, cyber security, and the design and management of major change projects.Gaps in Contract ManagementABS recognized the outsourcing of cyber security measures through the IBM contract did not adequately take into consideration the enormous impact to the confidence of the Australian public and the reputation of the ABS from any kind of security failure.Inadequate Risk ManagementThe ABS accepted that risk management did not focus enough on planning for things that were given a lower risk rating or on ensuring appropriate mitigation measures had been implemented.For example, while planning for a major outage was taken into consideration, the focus was on other forms of system failures. There was also a lack of focus on management planning from the perspective of the user, for example, adequate investment in the call centre and other communication systems to support the millions of frustrated Australians.Flaws in Cyber Security StrategyThe ABS did not manage cyber security risk using best practice from latest trends and insights.As IBM had been used for the Census in $2006$ and $2011,$ there was an assumption that IBM would continue to be appropriate without a rigorous review of cyber security processes for the $2016$ edition.Question $1$:What was the project scope in the Australian Census $2016$ case study