Former Victoria Education dept overlay sentenced over Ultra-net scandal-Strategy

A former deputy secretary at Victoria’s Education division has been sentenced to 300 hours group service for his function within the state’s failed Ultranet college studying mission.

Darrell Fraser was convicted of acquiring monetary benefit by deception and misconduct in public workplace at Melbourne’s County Courtroom on Friday after pleading responsible to the fees in April.

It comes greater than two years after the Unbiased Broad-primarily based Fee In opposition to Corruption (IBAC) laid charges in opposition to Fraser, in addition to two different former executives, in relation to Ultranet.

The costs stemmed from the corruption watchdog’s Operation Dunham investigation into the procurement course of behind the now notorious mission, which it labelled corrupt in early 2017.

Ultranet was an Oracle-primarily based on-line studying system and intranet constructed for the state’s public colleges by CSG between 2006 and 2010 in a bid to make life simpler for college students and oldsters.

However when it was examined with academics throughout a pupil-free skilled improvement day in 2010 it instantly crashed and was finally dumped after a assessment by the state’s auditor.

The IBAC investigation that adopted uncovered a community of schooling officers and salespeople that used the mission as a testbed to commercialise the software program and licence it globally.

It additionally discovered the mission may have price anyplace between $127 million and $240 million – greater than double its unique price range of $60.5 million when the mission was first launched in 2006.

Fraser’s costs relate to the choice to award a $1 million contract to CSG for the assessment of a number of IT tasks, together with Ultranet, which he first admitted to the corruption watchdog in 2016.

The Ultranet’s mission proprietor, who accepted a job with CSG in 2011, informed IBAC in 2016 that he intentionally hiding the payment to CSG through a 3rd-social gathering firm referred to as Alliance Recruitment.

Whereas a custodial sentence had already been dominated out, County Courtroom Choose Martine March sentenced Fraser to a two-yr Neighborhood Correction Order on Friday.

The sentence for his involvement within the fraud contains 300 hours of group service.

Fraser’s co-accused, together with former CSG CEO and managing director Julie-Ann Kerin, are nonetheless awaiting trial.

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