South Wales Evening Post - 14 December 2006
Your story on the council's eGovernment scheme (Post, December 8), not only misrepresents the facts of the case, but it also misrepresents me.
Firstly, on the basis of responses from 16 members you conclude that "the majority of Swansea councillors" believe that the eGovernment scheme should not go ahead.
As a mathematical conundrum that must have been a difficult conclusion for you to reach. In actual fact, from the information supplied in your article it is clear that the majority of councillors support the council's actions to date.
Secondly, despite an extensive reply from the cabinet member for eGovernment you choose to ignore her contribution to this debate, and quote extensively from the Labour opposition leader instead. Councillor Phillips raises several ill-founded and ill-informed concerns about a scheme that he started, and which has been significantly scaled back from that envisaged by him and the previous Labour administration, despite his bizarre claim that eGovernment has become "a vehicle for funding ever more ambitious IT schemes." Perhaps Councillor Phillips would like to elucidate this statement?
Thirdly, you say that the initial costs for the two phases of eGovernment have ballooned from around £100 million to £170 million, without explaining that only phase one has been implemented and that phase two has been put on hold on the basis that it would be imprudent to proceed with it on the current costings.
That is a decision that demonstrates the administration is taking a responsible approach to this issue.Finally, you have condensed my detailed answers to your four questions into six words. I hope that, in the interests of balance, you can find the space to print in full my answers. They are:
"Unfortunately, the issue is significantly more complex than your queries suggest and may even be the wrong questions in relation to effective scrutiny of the project. It is impossible to give a yes or no answer to any of them but I will try to be succinct:
1. resource@swansea is part of an important modernisation programme designed to bring Swansea Council into the 21st Century. As well as seeking to do things more efficiently, and thus generate savings that can be reinvested in frontline services, the programme also involves replacing and upgrading key systems that would need replacing anyway, making procurement more efficient and improving access to our services for the public both online and through the civic centre project.
If it were not being carried out as we are doing it then it would be necessary to do it through some other way. The benefits that this programme will bring are not just monetary, but both in terms of the money spent on it and the improved service it will bring when it has been fully rolled out, it will be value for money for local residents.
2. On the basis of the answer I gave to question one I would vote in favour of the scheme, however you should be aware that the Local Government Act 2000 makes this a decision that can only be made by the cabinet and thus I, and other councillors, are denied a vote on it by law.
3. Whether the council should move forward with service@swansea is dependent on the affordability of this scheme and satisfactory cost benefit analysis. That point has not yet been reached.
4. It is too early to say if eGovernment has lived up to expectations. Key programmes still have to be installed and rolled out across the authority; work is still on-going in identifying all the savings from new procurement processes with many still to be properly assessed and the programme has still not been in place for a full financial year. Even the reported shortfall referred to in the Evening Post has been overtaken by this process and the year end outturn will look very different from this."
Councillor Peter Black
Welsh Liberal Democrats
