The federal government has poured another $33 million into new child support payment technology off-limits to most staff at its Human Services department, after draining the project's original budget in two years.
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Despite the budget blow-out, the agency remains unable to say when the costly attempt to salvage the upgrade will yield success.
Human Services officials overseeing payments for 1.2 million children have returned to using long-obsolete IT instead as the department plans a reboot for the project.
The department spent the original $102 million budget to build the new payment system, called Pluto, and has admitted that by June this year costs had blown out by 32 per cent.
Human Services is yet to finalise its plan to revive the technology upgrade, after receiving a $491,000 report from consultants Deloitte earlier this year.
Child support staff have had to use Pluto alongside the agency's old technology, Cuba, but in August most were pulled out of the new system.
A small group of staff in new customers teams continue using Pluto but it is understood other Human Services public servants do not know when the department will re-open the payment system to them.
The department on Thursday did not say when all child support staff could use the IT again.
"This is an interim approach and in time, all staff will transition back to a more efficient version of Pluto," a spokeswoman said.
The department's budget blow-out was detailed in a response to a question from Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick. Human Services found the additional money from its own budget.
Senator Patrick said it had been a struggle to find out the additional spending from the department after its officials had been unable to tell him the cost in a federal budget estimates hearing in May.
He said the trouble involved in receiving the spending figure from Human Services showed it had been unaware itself of the cost.
The Community and Public Sector Union's deputy secretary Melissa Donnelly said Pluto remained in limbo as costs climbed.
"There’s been no sign of any meaningful progress since child support staff were told to stop using Pluto at the start of August, and we can’t see any signs that the system will be fit for purpose any time soon, if ever," she said.
"This situation just continues to go from bad to worse, and leaves the critical work our members do helping children and families in jeopardy."
Cuba, a system that was obsolete more than five years ago, was clunky to use and vulnerable to outages, Ms Donnelly said.
Human Services claimed in 2013 that it could have a replacement up and running by December 2015 but long after the mooted launch date for the new system, the agency's child support workers are still using Cuba.
Pluto is the fourth IT fix to be tried since the then-Labor government announced in 2013 its intentions to replace Cuba, which dates back to 2002. Soon after its launch, staff complained the new technology was slower and clumsier than its predecessor and later blamed it for a blow-out in call wait times.
