The final cost is up from previous estimates of around £40m – an increase that has been attributed to a number of factors, including underinvestment by previous governments.
News of the increase came as the government yesterday announced that a partnership of companies led by Keytree – part of Deloitte – had been awarded a major contract at the heart of the change programme, worth £19.3m over four years.
A further £4.9m contract over five years has been agreed with software company SAP, which will provide new technology to be implemented as part of the Integrated Technology Solution programme.
Chief operating officer John Quinn said the government had chronically underinvested in its systems in the past and, as a result, it had turned out to be a bigger project than first anticipated.
As an example, he said that internal staff costs for the work had risen from an estimated £4m to around £20m.
Around 100 government staff would be diverted to the project and their day jobs would need to be covered, he said. This was far more people than first estimated, he added, and it had originally been planned that they would not need to be temporarily replaced as the organisation had enough scope to manage.
However, Mr Quinn said the public sector had not developed as previously envisaged and Covid had also had an impact.
Some additional money has already been provided by the Treasury Department to cover the increased costs and a further £12.5m capital bid will be made in the next Government Plan, which is due to be lodged later this year.
The remaining money was set aside in the previous Government Plan.
Mr Quinn said that, even at the higher cost, the project represented value for money for the Island and amounted to around £4m a year investment in technology since 2005, when the government’s finance system was last updated.
‘Yes, it is a big sum but if we had spent regularly over the 16 years it is only £4m a year since we last invested. That is not an unreasonable sum to be investing in technology,’ he said.
‘We have to do something, we have a finance system that is very old and is unsupported. I doubt there are many Islanders using computers that are 2005 vintage.
‘Running government on an unsupported system is not something I would recommend. This won’t get cheaper.’
Keytree will team up with transformation consultants Sysdoc and local company Web Administration Resource Management on the project.
It has also committed to various ‘social value projects’ as part of the contract, such as taking on unemployed Islanders and providing workshops and training.
Mr Quinn said that the during the year-long procurement process they had been able to ‘shave off millions’ from the final cost.
The ITS programme was announced a year ago and described as a critical foundation for the wider modernisation of the civil service.
It will provide, among other things, a digital back office to join up finance, payroll and procurement systems and will enable the government to standardise and simplify how it works and implement better ways of working across departments.
It also aims to make it easier for Islanders to access information and support and simpler for suppliers to work with the public sector.
A company to manage the project is currently in the final stages of being appointed.
