South Wales Evening Post - 17 August 2007
Calls for a fully independent inquiry into Swansea Council's £83 million IT deal have been made by council workers' union Unison.
The council has already launched its own inquiry, which is being conducted by the council's auditors, PriceWaterhouseCooper (PCW). Although the PCW review is independent, the frame of reference was set by councillors.
Unison branch manager in Swansea, Jeff Baker, says it does not go far enough.
He said: "We have written to the chief executive at Swansea Council to ask him to instigate a full independent investigation into the eGovernment programme.
"There were some serious issues raised by the initial PCW report and we think the current investigation is too narrow."
The auditor produced a report into the £83 million scheme to replace the council's IT systems as part of its regular duties. That raised a number of issues, including questions about how much was done to check that promised savings were achievable; what alternatives were looked at; and whether concerns of senior staff were passed on.
A second investigation was then launched when councillors voted to ask if any senior staff had done anything wrong.
Mr Baker said: "The IT deal is now working as it should be. Millions of pounds of savings that were promised will not be realised.
"We want to see a fully independent inquiry, one where the experts ask the questions they think are important.
"Councillors are not experts and nor are we. That is why we want independent experts to draw up the questions that need to be answered.
"The council has said it wants to learn from its mistakes, but until it knows exactly what those mistakes are it's impossible to learn any lessons."
A council spokesman said: "The recent review undertaken by PriceWaterhouseCooper was a fully independent review, carried out on behalf of the Wales Audit Office. The requirements for the review were written and agreed by council.
"In addition to this, the council has also commissioned an independent investigation to determine whether officers, past or present, should face any disciplinary action regarding the issues raised by PWC.
"What is needed now is for positive action to be taken in respect of the recommendations coming out of these reviews to ensure that important lessons are learned for the future."
