South Wales Evening Post - 6 April 2007
Swansea is to get its long-awaited computer system to help citizens deal with an A-Z of council services.
The new software will give instant information about the council to customers when they visit County Hall to pay bills, make complaints or request services. Called Contact Swansea, it replaces plans for a multi-million pound system known as Service@Swansea.
Councillor Mary Jones, the cabinet member for the project, said the new system being brought in from Cardiff Council would give residents value for money.
"I was very impressed by what we saw in Cardiff," she said.
"It reinforced our own assessment which showed that the computer system being offered by Cardiff represents very good value for money."
Residents had been promised the one-stop call and drop-in centre. However, those plans were ditched because of the huge sums involved in setting it up.
The council was told it would have to pay £22 million to get the centre off the ground. It has now opted to spend less than £150,000 on a system developed by Cardiff Council.
However, residents will not get anywhere near the level of service promised in the original plan known as mailto:Service@Swansea.
The deal will see Cardiff Council supplying the software and expertise to run Swansea's new customer contact centre, which will be based at the revamped County Hall when it opens later this year.
Crucially, there will be no call centre and a promise of having 80 per cent of inquiries dealt with at the first contact with the council, by phone or in person, has been dropped.
Councillor Jones said: "At the end of the day what matters to people in Swansea is that they can do business with the council face-to-face in a straightforward way with as little fuss as possible."
In January 2006 Swansea Council signed an £84 million deal with Capgemini to replace its ageing computer systems. At that time Capgemini was the preferred partner to supply the customer service centre but an initial quote of £22 million to set up a tailor-made service was rejected.
A reduced system, priced at £3.5 million was also rejected and council leaders have now decided to go with Cardiff's much cheaper option.
A report for council leaders said: "None of these Capgemini proposals have been acceptable to the council in terms of value for money and a decision was taken by cabinet in January 2007 not to proceed with Capgemini."
The move to use Cardiff's system has been welcomed by opposition councillors.
Labour group leader David Phillips said too much time had been wasted on the Capgemini plans.
Conservative group leader Rene Kinzett said: "It is a shame that it has taken so long to get to this stage. A lot of time and effort has gone into pursuing an expensive tailor-made option and although this is not giving us the call centre that we were promised it is a step in the right direction - finally."
But council leader Chris Holley said: "One of the central aims of the Civic Centre is to give the people of Swansea the opportunity to access 21st Century council services easily.
"The contact centre will help the council do that and the partnership with Cardiff ensures that it is reliable and affordable."
