South Wales Evening Post (Editorial) - 26 February 2007
So Service@Swansea has finally bitten the dust. Phase two - the customer service system costing around £84 million - has been ditched in favour of one costing less than £1 million.
Swansea Council was right to rethink the project after costs for the two-phase project soared from the original £100 million estimate to £170 million.
Even though millions had already been spent by the Lib Dem-led coalition on phase one, it was common sense to re-assess the scheme before committing taxpayers to even more expenditure.
The scheme, the brainchild of the former chief executive Tim Thorogood and the previous Labour administration, was hugely controversial from the outset.
It's no secret that the public sector has a poor track record when it comes to managing and introducing big IT projects like this. They have a habit of going way over budget and failing to deliver the promised benefits.
Swansea cannot afford that sort of experience.
News of its demise will make it more controversial. Why was so much time and public money spent on this white elephant, and why didn't Swansea look to other authorities' systems in the first place?
