Swansea City Council has pulled out of the second phase
of an outsourcing programme with Capgemini after revised
projections for the first tranche of work suggested it would not
make anywhere near the original forecast savings.
The council signed an £83m deal to outsource its back-office
functions and IT services to Capgemini late last year, following 18
months of wrangling with council IT staff, which included strike
action by Unison members.
The second phase of the deal was due to create a new call centre
and website front office to give local people a single point of
contact with the council. But leader of the council Chris Holley
said last week that work undertaken in the past year by Swansea and
Capgemini had shown that the second-phase proposals were not
affordable.
In phase one of Swansea's outsourcing deal, £7.4m of "cash
realisable benefits" have been accepted as achievable over the 10
years of the contract, a council spokesman said. However, the
contract will cost the council £40m more than its normal IT budget
over its lifetime, and these revised figures led Swansea to rethink
its plans.
Michelle Morris, programme director at Swansea City Council,
said £26m was an overall savings target for the project, whereas
the £7.4m figure was a specific saving from future budgets
identified once technology had been rolled out. More savings would
be identified as the roll-out continued, she said.
Peter Ryder, president of public sector IT managers group
Socitm, said Swansea now needed to own up to any mistakes it had
made in order to re-establish good relationships with its IT
staff.
"It is quite a difficult thing to admit, but someone down the
track has got to hold a hand up and say, 'We ploughed on without
taking advice and now we have got to re-engage and open a
dialogue'," he said.
Ryder, who was speaking in a personal capacity, said that too
often problems were hidden or overlooked. "If somebody says, 'We
got it wrong, but we have learned the lesson, now let's draw a line
in the sand and have the dialogue,' that will often help," he
said.
Since the deal was signed, 66 council staff have transferred to
Capgemini. The supplier told Computer Weekly that it remained
committed to phase one of the contract and still planned to replace
many outdated systems and improve council efficiency.
Swansea signs 10-year deal
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