South Wales Evening Post - 05 October 2007
Trade unions at Swansea Council are demanding answers to what they have dubbed the multi-million pound eGovernment scandal.
Hitting out at the council's new £83 million IT system, they urged the authority to call in the Auditor General to intervene and "expose the many questions that have yet to be answered".
Swansea Council bosses branded many of the union's claims inaccurate, but accepted lessons should be learned for the future.
However, speaking on behalf of the joint trade unions, a Unison regional organiser said the matter should not be left buried under council bureaucracy.
"We are calling on all councillors to demand the Auditor General intervene.
"We are determined not to let this go until all aspects of this scandal have been revealed.
"The unions claimed there was a lack of proper scrutiny by elected councillors prior to the authority going ahead with the scheme, supplied by city IT firm Capgemini.
In a critical report, submitted to the council's eGovernment scrutiny board, they also claim no clear evidence was made public about how £28 million of the cost could be met through efficiency savings.
The unions also suggest the scheme went ahead without evidence to satisfy the Assembly's Best Value regulations. They say privatising the council's IT services would, in fact, cost £1 million extra per year.
The decision to proceed with the project was also blasted for showing "the lack of accountability of the cabinet system".
But council cabinet member for top performance and eGovernment, Mary Jones hit back, saying: "The unions' evidence to the scrutiny board contains a number of serious inaccuracies not supported by the evidence of the fully independent review by PricewaterhouseCoopers, carried out on behalf of the Wales Audit Office.
"What is needed now is for positive action to be taken in respect of the recommendations coming out of reviews carried out by PWC and by the scrutiny board to ensure that important lessons are learned for the future."
