South Wales Evening Post - 17 March 2007
Council reporter ROB GREEN looks back at the saga of Swansea Council's eGovernment programme, Service@Swansea.
Imagine a future where the world is a better place and all your problems can be solved with just one phone call.
Not so long ago that did not seem so far-fetched. More than two years ago we were promised just such a thing - at least when it came to problems with Swansea Council.
Whether it was bin bags left uncollected, pot holes in the road, rats rummaging in back lanes or street lights staying on throughout the day - one call would have done it all (at least for four out of five problems).
Now Swansea Council leaders have dropped plans for a call centre, dropped mailto:Service@Swanseaand ditched its high-profile partner from the hugely reduced second phase of its eGovernment programme.
mailto:Service@Swanseawas supposed to bring about the end of frustrating phone calls where council "customers" were passed from one department to another with no one accepting responsibility. Simply by calling one number we would have been put through to a highly trained operative who could have dealt with our problem there and then - at least for 80 per cent of calls.
Council leaders are no longer promising quite the same level of service. Although, according to them, that is good news for the people of Swansea because it means less money will be spent.
When the decision to drop mailto:Service@Swanseawas taken earlier this year a council press release was sent out saying: "Swansea Council's Cabinet has agreed a commitment that will mean access to council services are going to be better than ever in 2007 thanks to key initiatives taking shape later this year."
Services may be improved by the opening of the face-to-face contact centre at the civic hall, but it is not what was promised when it was launched. Council leaders failed to acknowledge the monumental U-turn of dropping its all-singing, all-dancing call centre.
In fact there was no mention of it in the press release, which included quotes from council leader Chris Holley and councillor Mary Jones, who is in charge of the eGovernment project.
Both have been fully behind the idea of a call centre in the past.
Just weeks after being elected leader of Swansea Council Chris Holley said: "We are fully committed to the Council's programme of improving performance and customer access to services. We will drive forward the Council's Top Performance and mailto:Service@Swanseainitiatives which will transform the way we work and improve public access to services.
"We will establish a new contact centre in the city centre by the end of 2006 that will ensure by 2008 that 80 per cent of all customer inquiries will be resolved during the first contact with the Council."
True to his word a lucrative deal was signed with IT firm Capgemini to replace the council's ageing computer network. That contract is worth £83 million to Capgemini over the next 10 years, and the council is paying a further £16 million in other charges and costs, putting the total cost of phase one at £99 million.
When it was signed in January last year residents were told it was phase one of a scheme that would pave the way for the call centre. Just a month before pen was put to paper a council press release said: "It means that phase two of the eGovernment programme, mailto:Service@Swansea,can continue to be developed and introduced as the 10-year programme rolls out."
At one point the total cost of the call centre and replacing the IT system was put at £109 million and council leaders stressed that £26 million would be recouped from efficiency savings.
And, as BBC's Watchdog programme warns: "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is."
So far more than £7 million of savings have been signed off as achievable, meaning financial experts are still searching for the other £18 million.
The council's auditors have warned that it could be a struggle to find the rest of the savings.
In a letter to the council in January of this year PricewaterhouseCoopers said: "To date, £7 million of these savings have been agreed as realisable by the council and Capgemini.
"Ongoing discussions are taking place between the two parties to agree the next phase of realisable savings, however there is a significant risk the full amount of anticipated savings will not be realised."
Just a month before the deal was signed Cabinet Member for eGovernment Councillor Jones assured residents that things were fine.
She said: "From a legal point of view consultants have looked at the deal making sure that it is a good deal."
Things moved quickly after the deal was signed in January 2006 and within days a figure of £170 million was quoted as the total cost for phase one and two.
Although there was no official confirmation of the figure, there was no denial and it has since been accepted as true.
So within days the cost of setting up and running a call centre had risen from around £9 million to over £70 million.
The Evening Post reported on mounting concerns over the spiralling cost and called for phase two to be put on hold. Unions and opposition councillors claimed the scheme was out of hand and the eGovernment programme needed to be reined in.
However, senior councillors remained convinced it was on track and repeatedly said that phase one was on target to make £26 million savings and that the call centre was on its way.
Twelve months later the council has officially dropped Capgemini from the second phase of the project and has significantly scaled back the project. Instead of a made-to-measure solution, a system that has been in use by Cardiff Council for the past six years is likely to be bought in.
Just £200,000 has been set aside for the software which should be in place by summer. Now residents will have to physically go to Swansea's revamped civic centre at Council Hall to get the hep they need.
E-mail and internet will also be available, but residents will not get an instant response.
Even this drastically reduced alternative to mailto:Service@Swanseahas been presented as good news for the city, and if it saves tens of millions of pounds then it possibly is. However, it does not mask that eGovernment has been a series of public relations disasters.
At the outset of the proposals the council's IT staff staged the longest walkout in Welsh public-sector history over plans to have their jobs transferred to Capgemini. The architect of the project, former Chief Executive Tim Thorogood, left the council under a cloud before the deal was signed. Costs spiralled and savings shrank leaving mailto:Service@Swanseaas an impossible dream.
Swansea is now hoping for a more realistic solution to its customer service problems and Councillor Jones is hoping that this one really will be value for money.
