Concerns over cost of Leeds City Council social care’s IT system
A senior opposition councillor has raised concerns about a ‘massive overspend’ on a new council IT system.
Councillor Alan Lamb has said delays to the implementation of a new social care record keeping system, together with a decision to follow a separate procurement process for the project, sent costs ‘spiralling’.
The Conservative shadow spokesman for children’s services told the Scrutiny Board for Health and Wellbeing and Adult Social Care yesterday that the initial cost had tripled.
But officer Dennis Holmes said that assertion was unfounded.
Details of the exact financial costs could not be revealed due to commercial confidentiality.
But the YEP understands the original estimated cost was £6.5m and under the new buying arrangements that figure has escalated to £16.7m – £6.8m for children’s services and £9.9m for adult services.
Yesterday coun Lamb asked for the decision to be reconsidered, but councillors decided to proceed.
Councillor Alan Lamb said: “I am concerned the cost of this project seems to be spiralling out of control.
“The costs are now considerably more than what was originally stated, and there simply isn’t enough explanation about how and why this has been allowed to happen.”
A spokeswoman for Leeds City Council said: “The suggestion made that the cost of implementing new social care management systems for adult and children’s social care services has increased threefold since June 2010 is completely unfounded.”
The social care record system was identified by OFSTED as one of the key failings in adult social care and children’s services during inspections carried out between 2007 and 2009.
As a consequence Leeds City Council decided to replace it with a better system.
The council agreed to enter into a partnership with Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council to deliver it.
Coun Lamb said he believed a private provider would be better placed to run the new system. But Mr Holmes said Calderdale had 30 years of proven experience.
