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.
"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
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.