BT is to refund £1.35m to Edinburgh Council for delays
in the council's Smart City e-government project.
The 10-year project was launched 18 months ago, but a BT
Scotland spokesman said: "The planned timing of the migration from
the council's old mainframes has slipped, and we don't want the
council to be out of pocket, so we will pay for costs and
retraining."
The refund will be made up of £550,000 in cash and £800,000 in
service credits. The council said it was now happy with the way BT
has responded to the delays, and it believes the project is now
back on track.
The Smart City project includes the establishment of a central
call centre for all Edinburgh citizens to contact the council,
improved web access to all council departments - including the
electronic submission of planning applications - and free web
access in all of the council's libraries.
The project is being managed by Syntegra, a wholly owned
subsidiary of BT. "This is one of the biggest IT projects in the UK
and, like any big project, some bits fall behind," the BT spokesman
said.