The delivery of the Isle of Wight Council’s new website — which is already 18 months behind schedule due to COVID-19 — is set to be scrutinised next week, as it is revealed the project is costing a staggering £765,000.
Concerns about the progress of the website were raised by the council’s audit committee after an internal review identified risks, including ‘significant weaknesses’ in the project management.
A new website was agreed as part of the council’s digital strategy in 2017 and £200,000 has already been spent on the project.
The current site has since failed to meet new accessibility legislation, introduced in 2018, which required all existing public sector websites to be fully compliant by September last year.
In a report to the corporate scrutiny committee, the council say cuts to its budget, from 2010, have seen the ICT infrastructure scaled back which have led to it ‘quickly becoming not fit for purpose’.
When the COVID pandemic struck in March 2020, the website project team was only just 3 months into planning and the aim of launching a development (or Beta) site by September 2020, designed around the needs of those who use the services, was no longer feasible. The team was redirected to help the pandemic response instead.
Progress was ‘further hampered’ as new waves of the virus continued to emerge and as staff left. The internal audit also found key documents were not sufficiently available to the team, there was an absence of detailed planning and weak financial control.
At the time of the review, auditors said it was not possible to identify how much had been spent on the project so far. The report revealed the overall budget for the project, across all 3 phases, is £765,000 — with £219,800 already spent in phase 1.
Action has since been taken to address the points raised by auditors but further concerns about the project overall were raised by councillors, chiefly the reason why the council decided to build the website and content management system and not have another party do it.
Using financial modelling over a 5-year period, based on the time it took other authorities to build their sites, the council estimated it would cost between £300,000 and £900,000 more to get an outside supplier to complete the website.
It is hoped the test website will be launched in March 2022 and, once checks have been completed, it should go live in April.
The council says a significant amount of work has put the project back on track but the original plans for the site have been scaled back to meet the statutory obligations as soon as feasibly possible.
Members of the corporate scrutiny committee will look further into the problems at their meeting on Wednesday 15th December.
How the f*** does a website cost that amount of OUR money. I know I.T. is expensive, but come 0n, someone is on the take here. Investigation please.
Another magnificent waste of council tax money/assets. How the bloody hell has the costs spiralled into £765,000 and rising. The so called corporate security committee should hang their heads in shame. Still another rise in the council tax should cover this.
Meanwhile there are many of us struggling with everyday costs to just survive while those idiots in county hall continue to waste our money on things unimportant. How glad I am that I have a higher level of intelegence that procludes me from having anything to do with our wonderful council.
Will Apple users be able to use the new website? That iss not been the case with the current one. And how much money exactly has Idox Solutions been paid overall for the complete unusable shambles that currently is the Planning Portal???
Yet another story of bungling incompetence and a colossal waste of OUR money. This has to stop. The persons responsible should be held to account and dismissed from their positions
Aha,I predict another FB6 saga. What happened to ‘if it’s not broken, don’t fix it’? When I was in business, I would have loved a customer who said ‘just keep on billing me until the job is done’…..
It’s really sad that the council only seems to want to do this to meet statutory obligations rather than to create something to be proud of and an interface the public can massively benefit from.
Doesn’t surprise me though as priorities seem to be for new ‘grandiose’ schemes, few of which actually happen.
Is there anything this inept council can’t get right. There’s a surprise to Covid!! Lol
I want a rebate, a big one.
A project with absence of detailed planning & weak financial control administered by the IWC, Never!!!
Seems to me all council officers are on a career long jolly. I’m all for keeping projects in house to prevent £££s of our pennies being waisted on consultancy’s & the like. Maybe before allowing any of these projects to appear on a whiteboard, the scrutiny committee should audit the time & motion of each & every officer employed to provide a service. You only had to witness the lethargic approach to time keeping at any of the Councils office buildings pre pandemic to realise working from home would be abused!!
This council is not fit for purpose. One disaster after another. Who the hell is in charge of yet another fiasco.
It really is time a few heads rolled instead of promoting the incompetent ‘out of harms way’
The council tax from how many new houses will have to be built to pay for this ?
What a bargain they sure know how to spend money
“Our money”!
There was a lack of detailed planning and weak financial control.
Nothing new there, at IW County Hall
Over three-quarters of a million for a website?
WHAT?!
so, the council tax of about 600 people for the entire year has been spent on this dross. Are these clowns even on the same planet
They come from planet sod it …
It ain’t our money it’s the cash cow’s money …
Ooh and they have degree’s in how to smirk in every photo ….
Amazing attribute ( yuk )
And, just what is the penalty for a public sector website being ‘non compliant’ by September 2020? More cost to the Council Tax Payer no doubt.
The Councils own plan only had a Beta (testing) version of the site to be up by then, and they admit that they have failed to even manage that?
I honestly think years of playing management and simulation games I could run the Island better than this lot.
Whats the matter with the one they have got?
Oh goody! Another floating bridge style projectĺ
Well knock me down with a feather duster !!!!
What next ????
Floating bridge fiasco …
Air conditioning in Council offices … not very green !!!!!
Electric car fleet ….
Rise in their pension pot …
Blood out of a stone springs to mind …..
We the general public are p:d off paying for all your c— ups and waste of money our money !!!!
Please 1 Councillor tell us what every penny of our hard earned money goes on how much you waste £38-000 on a professional engineer to keep the non floating bridge running (wasted already ) that’s your starter for 10 .
How much Council tax is raised from the whole island ???
what cuts are they going to make to pay for this .its about time the rate payers should be in control on what to spend , all the Council consider it s not our money .
£765,000! The council ought to be ashamed. No doubt it’s been outsourced to a third-party consultancy.
I’ve just designed a website for Northamptonshire’s new Unitary Council, and it’s cost the council a couple of thousand.
The Isle of Wight Council ought to be ashamed.
this is only to make the Council workers quicker and easier ,how about instead of cutting services cut this webb site