We are not in the habit of using this blog to pre-empt announcements by the Administration, so why exactly the Inside Outers felt that they should have read it here first that the Council is doing a deal with Cardiff on e-government we cannot say. Nevertheless if they choose to re-read our posts on this subject they will see that we have been hinting at it for some time.Despite all the spin coming from Labour and the Tories the facts are these:
1. The Administration decided that the figures did not stack up on phase two with Capgemini and rather than take a risk with taxpayers money decided to look at other alternatives. Councillor Mary Jones told Council that it was still the intention to go ahead with the contact centre using a different provider.
2. No expenditure has been committed to phase two and therefore all the talk of money wasted is just nonsense. The figures on phase one are clear and add up. Now that we are proposing going into partnership to deliver phase two then we will be able to deliver the contact centre we promised.
3. As one comment on the Evening Post website said: "The council have delivered what they said they would, a new contact centre with the appropriate technology at a fraction of the original price quoted."
What is amusing is how suddenly everybody has acquired the powers of foresight. Councillor Mark Child for example tells the Post: "Unfortunately, we no longer have the IT expertise to be able to implement this in-house as they were all transferred to Capgemini. Having said that, this is the approach we have been advocating all along."
As Labour's Technology Spokesman Child should know that it was not the expertise that was lacking it was an appropriate record management system and if he really has been advocating this course of action all along then he must have been whispering it very quietly. It was certainly not on the agenda of the previous Labour Administration when they started service@swansea in the first place.
The Evening Post is equally as prescient. However, they also need to understand that the driver for going to another local authority was the fact that costings on phase two were not affordable. The use of Cardiff's CRM could not have happened without phase one being implemented first.
The Administration also did not inherit a blank sheet. When we took over a process was well underway with preferred bidders and all the legal advice was that we had to see it through or else end up paying compensation.
The outcome is much better than it could have been. We have a system in place that is starting to produce the anticipated savings and we also have a workable alternative to Capgemin so as to deliver phase two. We have done this without busting the budget originally set by Labour when they conceived of e-government in the first place.
Update: Labour reproduce a previous post of 28 April 2006 from the old Inside Swansea blog but all they have succeeded in doing is to prove our consistency on these matters. The Council is still on course to achieve its savings whilst the deal with Cardiff will guarantee the massively improved interface with the public that will transform the Council's customer service record. Labour ask what we have been doing for the last three years? The answer is sorting out the mess they left us and getting e-government right.
