BoM's seven-year technology transformation cost $866m

The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has finally put a price tag on its seven-year technology transformation Robust, coming in at $866 million, below the speculated billion-dollar cost.

The final cost was published late yesterday and came after years of the figure being withheld from federal budgets and senators, citing cabinet-in-confidence.

Until now, the best guess on the cost of the program was “nearly a billion dollars”, which came from a January 2023 speech by CEO Andrew Johnson.

Described by BoM as its “most ambitious project” ever, Robust was created to address “security, stability and resilience vulnerabilities” after a 2015 hack, and major outages in 2015 and early 2016. 

“Reviews of Bureau technology, infrastructure and other capabilities identified that vulnerabilities which had arisen partly because of a lack of sustained investment were jeopardising Bureau services,” BoM said in a statement released quietly late yesterday.

Over the seven years to June 30 2024 when the transformation program “formally closed”, a “complex transformation” of BoM’s “vast information and observing technology systems” was delivered.

The program’s formal end appeared to eliminate the need to continue withholding how much the program cost, and what funding tranches BoM received from the government.

“The Robust program received funding in the 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2020-21 federal budgets,” BoM said.

“At program closure on June 30 2024, total expenditure from 2017-18 to 2023-24 financial years was $866m.”

Equivalent to about $123 million a year, that investment bought new IT infrastructure, networks and data centres, a new supercomputer for backup and disaster recovery, “improved cyber and physical security capabilities”, a new website and a standard operating environment.

It also paid for “major upgrades to observing systems, including new and upgraded radars, automated weather balloon launchers, flood warning equipment and associated communications networks”, and “upgraded technology platforms for space weather and flood forecasting.”

Johnson said that Robust had “delivered secure, stable and resilient information and observing technologies for the Australian community, ensuring the Bureau can continue in its core mission of providing trusted, reliable and responsive weather, water, climate and ocean services for Australia.”

“Robust has been an extraordinary team effort over many years,” he said.

“This vital investment in our nationally critical capabilities ensures the Bureau maintains its position as one of the world's foremost and most respected hydrological and meteorological agencies.

“I thank our staff, partners and suppliers for their outstanding efforts."