Southwest One gets £10m IBM loan amid 'staggering' losses

The leader of Somerset county council, Ken Maddock, has said that Southwest One is failing to deliver, that its accounts show "staggering losses" of £31.5m and "failures to hit modest savings targets". Southwest One was set up in 2007 as a joint venture between IBM, Somerset county council, Taunton Deane borough council and …

[Andy ORourke]

This is news?

"It is failing to deliver promised savings; failing to cope with a changing financial landscape; failing to be flexible enough to adapt in challenging times and provide the best possible value for money."

Shirley this could be said of almost any Government IT contract?

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: This is news?

THIS IS NOT A JOKE.

THIS IS THE TRUTH.

[philbo]

@Andy O'Rourke

What makes it news is that someone involved in the project has stood up and told it like it is - most of the time the politicians concerned keep blathering on about the £2.50p.a. it'll save ten years hence, ignoring the millions in setup and "transformation" costs.

[John Smith 19]

"the impact of market conditions"

What f***ing market?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "the impact of market conditions"

Perhaps it is the common market. I am sure I remember voting for something like that in the 70s.

I wonder what became of it?

[ChrisM]

Proper Post Mortem Needed

First, what was the original tender specification.

Second, what was the final org design

Third, what CR's were submitted during build that meant a fundamental change to that design.

That should give us an idea of what went wrong.... Usually these problems start with a poorly specified task and the rest is knock on....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Proper Post Mortem Needed

One of the local MPs has been an ongoing critic - he has a blog at the address below which details some of the various events of the past 5 years - including issues over tender, requirements, problems etc.

http://www.liddellgrainger.org.uk/ian/MOGGTHEBLOG2012.html

Whilst I wouldn't want to say that a post mortem is not needed, I think that any subsequent review would probably identify most of the same issues that have already been highlighted by ILG.

What does annoy me is that those primarily responsible for this fiasco are all going to walk away with substantial payments - and the poor bloody taxpayer (including me as a resident of the area concerned) will once again foot the bill.

[philbo]

Re: Re: Proper Post Mortem Needed

Looks like they should get their MP to do the PM :)

[thegrouch]

Well, who'd have guessed it?

A strategic partnership with IBM which doesn't deliver the expected results. In fairness, the same thing would have happened with Crapita, Accenture, EDS or any of the big consultancies. I don't honestly know of any companies who've benefitted from their services.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Well, who'd have guessed it?

> A strategic partnership with IBM

By first-hand experiences, it CAN work. But:

1) Take what the salesmen say during the tendering process with a large grain of salt.

2) Secretly prepare political ammo for justifying:

a) Doubling the project length.

b) Doubling the project cost. In particular, lots of "included" features will turn out to be "extras".

This is standard in particular for GovOrg where no-one wants to admit to real cost or complexity.

3) Keep your own management away from meddling and re-planning once it's started.

4) Particular for GovOrg.: Set recent hires / young people on the project who don't endlessly try to not take a decision and actually have enough Courage Wolf inside to actually do some work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every govt contract

Doesn't matter if its national or local. The head has no idea what the neck is doing let alone the foot. The problem is the obsession with Outsourcing to the large inefficient companies but also not knowing what they are buying. I used to work in the public sector IT (hence my anonymity here :) ) and e used to pay double for a PC or server than what I pay for stuff at my current employer. It makes me so Angry!

Stop wasting our money! Get people who know what they are doing in not the big Bull********!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"IBM has taken security over future funding."

What does that mean, in English?

[John Smith 19]

"Introduction of a new SAP system"

Which should have set alarm bells ringing from day 1.

Note. SAP has been supplied in various "pre-configured" versions set up for best practice (at least SAP think its best practice) in various industrial sectors.

Pre-load on new servers, bring them in on a weekend, Upload historical data to new servers and your ready to go Monday morning. It *can* work.

*Provided*

SAP have a version for your business sector (local govt?).

Your way of working maps to SAP well (or can be made to).

You've done *serious* work on data mapping your existing systems to SAP's and cleaned the data *before* you do the transfer.

You've made proper arrangements to handle the *complete* ETL process, starting with a *full* backup of all your core systems.

And in the case of *multiple* local govt bodies they *converge* there business processes into a *single* path to eliminate all that "If council = little-dunny-on-the-wold then set majority to Conservative" special case coding.

What's the betting they got the full fat swiss-army-knife SAP version with *lots* of bespoke coding (at full contractor rates)?

Note an SAP financial system delivered to NASA gave *unified* accounts across all its sites for the first time *ever* and identified roughly $876Bn in misaccounted money dating back to the founding of the Agency. NASA used to have the same auditors as Enron. They don't anymore. See CFO magazine for details.

[TeeCee]

Re: "Introduction of a new SAP system"

SAP. It's a bit like injecting heroin, only with the part where you briefly feel really good taken out.

This leaves just the bits where you feel really crappy, your whole life is completely destroyed and all your money gets spent on it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wise words from JohnSmith and TeeCee.

Not that it'll be news to anyone who's ever observed an SAP implementation or two.

[Anonymous Coward]

Penalty clauses, targets, same tune different lyrics again and again

We always seem to read about projects going completely over budget and targets and yet why is ther eno penalty clauses. How could IBM get something so epicly wrong, i know there not perfect but they aint that bad and I have seen some major howlers by them , though they accept it and move forward covering there mistakes fairly I have found.

So when I read this I have to conclude that IBM+council===managment snafu of epic proportions.

Any chance of a breakdown of councils and there IT spending and there sucess's and failures. that would be interesting reading and at least nice to know which ones do well.

though by design and the usual turf gathering attitude of managment at council level I do realy question how so many can be allowed to reinvent the same wheel, over and over and over again. Councils don't differe that much in what they have to do, they just find different ways to muck it up.

[Anonymous Coward]

strike me

problems with the introduction

of a new SAP system.