States £7m e-gov project delayed?

Wednesday 25 February 2015

The States flagship £7 million e-gov project that was meant to deliver online tax returns and huge efficiency savings has stalled.

The project was meant to bring a new level of efficiency and ease to dealing with the States, but instead, the key job of awarding the contract to do the work missed a critical deadline, the civil servant running the programme has been sidelined, and a much scaled-down version of the original plan is now being worked up.

Treasury Minister Alan Maclean says that the ambitious target of having 75% of all government services on a new “States of Jersey portal” by 1 January 2018 was still on track, but he says they're playing catch-up after having lost four-to-six months on the project.

He said that Economic Development chief officer Mike King would no longer be running the project – a few months ago Mr King said that the new e-gov portal would be up and running between April 2016 and January 2017. There is now a big question over that deadline too.

But the minister says that the project is still important to ministers because it will drive efficiencies in the public sector, and make life easier for the public.

The news comes just weeks after the States were told by their independent economic advisers to invest in projects that would drive efficiency and productivity – which is almost the perfect definition for an e-gov model that would make dealing with the States more convenient and quicker for the public, make for more efficient work in the public sector and lead to better data use and sharing.

Senator Maclean said the project was “critically important” to the work to reform the work of the public sector.

He said: “The public expect public services to be efficient and effective. We have reassessed the project, and refined it. There will be other short-term benefits which will try to get more relevant services online as early as possible, so that the public can see much earlier benefits to this important project.”