The cost of upgrading Swansea Council's IT system has soared.
Council chiefs said this was mainly because it would take three years to do the work - because of the Covid pandemic - not one year as had been planned.
A council scrutiny committee heard the cost was now £8.4 million, up from £4.8 million in 2019. That's a rise of 75%.
Cabinet has agreed to spend the extra £3.6 million, which will cover Oracle licences needed by the additional staff taken on by the authority since the pandemic.
The money will also pay for the specialist external and in-house skills which will now be needed over three years.
Speaking at the scrutiny meeting, Cllr Peter Black asked if the £8.4 million figure would be the final cost.
Council leader Rob Stewart replied: "It's the best we know at the current time."
He said the one caveat would be if another coronavirus variant led to further disruption, including for the external specialists who were helping with the work.
"It (the £8.4 million) should deliver all we need to carry out the programme as we need it today," added Cllr Stewart.
The IT upgrade was approved in September, 2019, but had to be put on hold when Covid hit in 2020. The work began again in February, 2021.
During this time the council recruited extra staff, had more people working remotely from home, and needed to ensure its IT infrastructure supported the newly-created test, trace and protect system. Digital systems were also required to administer tens of millions of pounds of UK Government support to local businesses which had to close during lockdowns. This was on top of the normal, day-to-day running of the IT infrastructure.
Cllr Stewart said: "When you look at it in that context, it's a really impressive period of work."
Referring to a costly outsourced IT project overseen by a previous administration in Swansea, he added: "We have learned the lessons of the past.
"If we are going to get the newest technology, which is Oracle and the cloud, which is, in the long-term, lower cost and the best technology, then we need to make sure we do it in a planned way."
His Labour cabinet colleague, Cllr Andrea Lewis, told the committee that new digital systems being rolled out for council housing tenants, and human resources and finance were "the backbone" of the authority.
The council's upgraded IT system is due to go live in October this year.
Meanwhile, £2 million has been allocated for a new data centre at the Guildhall. The existing one is in the Civic Centre, which could be redeveloped as part of Swansea Labour's wider regeneration plans for the city.
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