Tories claim ill-fated project left £3 million hole in the books
The Conservative administration of Ealing Council have released figures which they claim show the damage done by their predecessor's ambitious 'Response Programme'.
The £61 million project was to have been one of the largest ever IT projects undertaken by a Local Authority but it quickly became mired in controversy with senior staff apparently resigning in protest and technical problems dogging the scheme to the extent that very few of the promised improvements were delivered.
Response was supposed to fully integrate Council services through state of the art IT, whilst also producing a number of cash savings in the running of the Council. This is the equivalent of over £539 for every household in the Borough.
So far the total savings made from Response amount to just £758,000 according to the Conservatives. This compares to a projected saving of £12 million within three years according to the figures used to justify the initial expenditure.
The new Conservative administration says it has identified a number of black holes, currently amounting to £3.2 million - and for the 2007/08 revenue budget alone.
They include the lack of provision of a disaster recovery system, the hiding of revenue cost in the capital budget and the under-estimation of archive storage capacity needed with the Greenford depot already full. Other accounting issues which have been totalled up to reach the deficit number claimed include a dramatically over-inflated number for projected halls bookings which accounts for £450,000 alone.
Cllr David Scott, Portfolio Holder for Finance and Performance said, “Labour’s Response Programme was a total disgrace and remains a shocking example of how not to modernise a Council. It was introduced without a proper business plan and has left this Borough with huge borrowing levels as a result. Labour said that what would emerge is a Council with integrated services through a hi-tec IT system and that millions of pounds of savings would be achieved as a result. Both were pure fantasy and the residents of this Borough are now paying the price of Labour’s incompetence”.
February 24, 2007