TAUNTON Deane Borough Council (TDBC) wants to spend £7.1 million with Ignite and Civica on an unnecessary ‘Transformation’ IT system, also unnecessary for the merger with West Somerset Council. 

There is no way the Conservative leader can claim that £3.1 million transformation savings are assured and definite, because they depend on a ‘magic’ new IT system allowing some 80 posts to be redundant and Taunton citizens doing the work themselves with their own PCs and tablets. 

When demand for face-to-face or complex services does not fall as claimed, expensive agency staff, including previous employees, will be hired.

After the failures of CSL with Deloitte and Touche and Southwest One with IBM the £7 million transformation will be TDBC’s third huge IT outsourcing failure, staff will have left with large redundancy payments and service standards will fall.

The Liberal Democrat’s Southwest One was supposed to save £192 million over 10 years but lost Somerset County Council £70 million.

While neighbouring counties were going unitary, I believe Southwest One was also designed to lock Somerset into the 1970s two-tier management structure with five chief executives and management teams and more than 300 councillors.

Mendip, Sedgemoor, South Somerset and West Somerset wisely rejected it, while Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset, Cornwall and Wiltshire are cheaper unitary councils. 

The Wiltshire unitary initiative was achieved on time and under budget gaining a glowing report from the government. The council also publishes its top 20 Key Performance Indicators. 

The leader Jane Scott said their ‘Back Office costs had reduced from 19 per cent to seven per cent’. Dorset is now very much in focus with 75 per cent of households supporting reducing Dorset’s nine councils to two. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole would be one.

County Hall has ample space to be the main office for a Somerset Council and cannot really be used for any other purpose. The 1970s Taunton Deane building is only 2km away. 

In 2014, TDBC announced they would move into County Hall to eliminate waste and duplication. Their latest very wasteful proposal is to spend £7.5 million updating and altering their office to accommodate Taunton Police and other possible partners.

There can be little doubt that Mendip, Sedgemoor, South Somerset and Somerset County councils would not want the risk or cost of Taunton’s £7.1 million IT system so it would again prevent normal business reform.

We appear to be wasting nearly £15 million, roughly £500 per household, to block out cheaper and better council services.

CHRIS MANN
Taunton