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IT programme – no cost blowout

Media release

20 November 2014


IT programme – no cost blowout

Following discussion of an update on Auckland Council’s Information Services Transformational Programme at today’s Finance and Performance Committee, council has released the report publicly.

Today's committee agenda item (see resolutions below) sought to bring forward $24m to be spent in the earlier stages of the project, enabling efficiencies to be achieved later on.

The report (attached) covers the consolidation of core council information technology systems and addresses the reprioritisation of the programme to optimise outcomes, and the extension and enhancement of the testing programme.

Chief Operating Officer Dean Kimpton says there is no 'cost blowout' and rigorous risk management processes are being applied to the programme.

“There is no change to our overall IT budget and no increase in funding required; however, the NewCore component of the overall programme has increased in cost and will require an additional year to complete.

"We’ve taken a closer look at the complexity of our systems and carried out more detailed due diligence, which has given us a clearer picture of the priorities. As a result, we are accelerating some parts of the project and must adjust funding accordingly.

"We want to simplify our processes so Aucklanders have systems that are customer-friendly and easy to use, at their fingertips. Building consents, resource consents, rating, dog licensing and the booking of community facilities are some of the areas that will benefit from more customer-friendly online and IT systems.

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"The accelerated $24m spend agreed at today's committee is simply bringing forward some capital spend. We want all the inter-related parts of the programme rolled out in the optimal order. It's also about applying more rigour to testing as we go forward and ensuring we are learning from any Novopay-type experiences,” Mr Kimpton says.

"We want to realise the benefits of the programme at a greater rate, hence we brought forward some of the spend,” he says.

An independent chief information officer (CIO) reference group, made up of CIOs from a range of public sector and corporate organisations, has brought strong governance oversight to the council’s IT transformation programme, and has endorsed the approach taken.

Independent expertise from EY has also brought critical oversight of the programme.

ENDS

FIN_20141120_SR_4762_3.pdf


Finance and Performance Committee Meeting – 20 November 2014
Resolutions:
a) note the update and progress being made on the Organisation IS Transformation programme
b) note the reprioritisation of the programme to optimise the overall outcomes of the programme and note that no additional funding for the IS transformation programme is requested
c) approve the re-phasing of $24 million of IS transformation budget forward to the 2015 and 2016 years in order to optimise overall programme outcomes
d) note the extended and intensified quality assurance and testing programme at a cost of $13m
e) agree that the Council’s IT programme progress including NewCore be reported to this Committee on a quarterly basis
f) agree that the item and report be considered in the open section of the meeting.

About NewCore:
The NewCore transformation (consolidation) project is complex. It is designed to consolidate the core systems from the eight legacy councils that support customer interactions, rates, regulatory services and related property data. Each legacy council had a different system (or group of systems) which collected and stored large amounts of complex data in different ways.

As well as consolidation, this project will reduce the cost of collecting information and managing these services. It aims to:

• simplify and standardise customer and business processes for customer interaction, rates, regulatory services and related property data
• enable more effective development of digital solutions for customers, giving them more choices around how they want to interact with council
• consolidate core customer-facing systems that support these processes
• create a standardized base set of processes and systems for implementation of the Unitary Plan and bylaw reviews, where only one set of systems needs to be updated, as opposed to multiple legacy systems, and reducing the operational risk associated with complex end-of-life systems.

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