Award winning IT entrepreneur slams "shameful" States

Friday 27 February 2015

A government project to get more of its services online is in tatters this morning after one the Island’s most respected IT experts launched a scathing attack on it.

Mark Loane – who was named Entrepreneur of the Year at last year’s Jersey Awards for Enterprise, and who sits on the Board of Digital Jersey – has labelled the eGov project a ‘mess’ and criticised politicians and senior civil servants for lacking vision and leadership.

Mr Loane was directly critical of States Chief Executive John Richardson, who he says "lacks expertise and understanding of the eGov project.

The aim of eGov is to put as many States and parish services online to save money, and make it easier for islanders to communicate with government. But after 18 months the project appears to have hit the buffers, with local suppliers, including Mr Loane’s company C5 Alliance, at a loss as to what is happening.

Writing on a blog, Mr Loane asks: “After two years of talking and hundreds of hours spent by the local supplier community, Digital Jersey and UK firms attending numerous meetings and preparing lengthy tender documents, the procurement process for eGov has come to a grinding halt.

“Crucially, this is not due to lack of capacity, resources or talent on the Island, but because of ingrained problems with, and lack of, leadership and strategy. If the process wasn’t working, why did it take 18 months for it to be stopped?

He argues that the States is blighted by risk aversion and a lack of joined-up thinking.

“Linked to this risk aversion is the government’s kneejerk response to always look to the UK for consultation; costs for eGov have been rising to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds for these services – a scandalous waste of public money.

“Local services are already providing world-class services to a range of global clients, so I fail to understand why we must look to the UK given what Jersey is already doing.”

The founder of C5 Alliance concedes that he would like his firm to be involved but adds: “The situation is now so extremely negative that I don’t really care how it gets done, just that it does, to a high standard, and ideally using the local sector for the benefit of Jersey.

“It goes beyond industry; as a citizen, I want to see this turned around."

In response, Jonathan Williams, the newly installed States’ Business Change Director for eGov, said that the States were fully committed to the project, despite failing to find a ‘lead partner’ during a lengthy procurement process.

Writing an update on the States website, he said: ‘We remain firmly committed to investing in the eGov programme and have taken the time to reconsider our objectives and approach.

“A critical aspect will be to rethink how we approach the market to support delivery of the eGov programme and this is still under review. We will engage with the market to establish this approach and provide further updates once this is clear.”

Links to Mark Loane's blog, and to the States comments, can be found here:

http://www.markloane.com/2015/02/egov-eventually/
http://www.gov.je/Government/eGovernment/Pages/eGovernmentProgrammeUpdate.aspx