The cost of the federal government's digital portal myGov tripled over four years while departments failed to show how it made services more efficient, a new report has found.
The auditor-general on Tuesday released a report into myGov services and the role of the Department of Human Service, Digital Transformation Agency and Australian Taxation Office.
In 2012, the government approved a budget for the myGov project of $29.7 million to 2015/16 based on a business case.
The auditor-general found the project was not delivered within this original agreed funding, with actual spending to June 2016 totalling $86.7 million.
The blowout was put down to the cost of having to deal with almost double the forecast number of users and improvements in technology.
The report found it was not possible to determine whether all the expected savings were realised as Human Services and the Australian Taxation Office "did not define performance metrics to enable the quantification of actual savings".
The DTA said in its response it would work with Human Services to develop a performance framework.
The auditor-general also found that "sound planning processes" had been in place from 2012, but "strategic insight" was lost when the governing board and reference group was axed in June 2015.
Labor spokesman Ed Husic told AAP it was "yet another example of digital transformation gone wrong under the Turnbull government".
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