This Is Guernsey

By Simon Tostevin

FORMER Social Security Authority president Owen Le Tissier is rejecting claims that the introduction of a new computer system he oversaw was an overspend.

A Public Accounts Committee report into Social Security’s move to a PC-server system stated that the department had gone £3m. over budget on the project.

But Mr Le Tissier (pictured below), authority president until 2004, said that was not the case and he was annoyed that PAC report consultant PricewaterhouseCoopers had not even spoken to him before publishing its findings.

‘The first time I heard about the report was two weeks ago. I was president of the authority at the time the contract was introduced but no one has even asked for my views. It’s almost like being tried for making a decision but not being told you are being tried.’

Mr Le Tissier shared the view of Social Security minister Diane Lewis, who said yesterday that the project was evolutionary and costs had not been fixed. He said it was impossible to claim there was a £3m. overspend when the project had always been evolving since the department began its move from a mainframe computer system in 1998.

‘When we started looking at the system there were only one or two in operation throughout the world and one was in New York, so it wasn’t as easy as saying, “let’s go and look at others and copy the system”. We were breaking new ground.

‘It’s now working very well and other jurisdictions are following the same lead. When you compare it to systems that are being tried in the UK and have failed, ours is a success.’

He said the £3m. figure was simply wrong. ‘When you’re the first in the field at attempting it, you have to tell someone what you need technically. But you never get firm clarity on that because the system is always evolving and changing.’

The PAC also reported that in 2002, Deloitte & Touche had warned that the proposal by Atos, the firm responsible for the upgrades, did not represent best value for money and advised the department to go out to tender. But Social Security decided to stick with Atos and Mr Le Tissier stood by that and all other decisions.

‘If I was tasked with introducing a new computer system again with what I know now, I would make the exact same decisions as I made then.’

On the one to stay with Atos, he added: ‘I’d have been devastated to have spent £2m. and had no value for it at all. To simply discard everything we had learnt over those years seemed to me to be a total waste. It made sense to carry on.’

Article posted on 23rd February, 2008 - 9.21am