The budget for a Swansea Council IT project has more than doubled and Covid is largely to blame, leaders have said. The new Oracle Fusion system was expected to go live in November 2020 and cost £4.8m.
Councillors were told in January this year that the budget had risen to £8.4m and that the new system was due to be operational this month. But council leader Rob Stewart told the authority's scrutiny programme committee this week that the Oracle roll-out was now expected to cost £10.7m and go live in April 2023. The IT system has to be updated as the current one is reaching the end of its life.
The cost increases have been attributed to the much longer length of time needed to implement and test the new system – partly because council IT staff were seconded to other tasks during the pandemic, such as getting grants out to businesses as quickly as possible. You can read more stories about Swansea here.
