It was revealed in a recent P&R update that the Committee will seek to overhaul the government website, through which many public services and notices are provided.
Express understands work will begin early next year to replace the website, with the States currently engaged in a tender process for the project.
While Deputy Cameron welcomed this, he expressed disappointment that the expertise to “create a basic website” cannot be found in-house, adding that other delays or protracted processes are damaging perceptions of the States internally and externally.
He noted that there are around 260 IT projects being undertaken by the States but claimed that with the current level of resources available these could take decades to be completed.
Despite planned improvements, Deputy Cameron claimed that there are outstanding issues with current services, including the Agilisys helpdesk system, with “thousands of unresolved tickets” existing “due to an understaffed and possibly inexperienced team”.
Mismanagement of target operating models has also had negative consequences, with one example given at Traffic & Highway Services where staff morale and user experience has been impacted.
“They were forced to move the Driver and Vehicle Licensing section of staff from Bulwer Avenue to Edward T Wheadon House under the assurance that the MyGov customer hub would be in place to support reducing the staff numbers and deliver a far greater customer experience. The customer hub has not been delivered – it has pushed DVL staff to the limits resulting in 100% turnover of staff. £4m wasted on the MyGov portal so far with nothing to show for it.,” Deputy Cameron said.
Pictured: Deputy Cameron.
Deputy Cameron said the hundreds of other IT projects in the pipeline must be completed as “many of which are cost saving or even revenue raising and also offer improved service to the public”.
While covid accelerated the roll-out of laptops to civil servants many remain unable to work remotely due to restrictions on approved work environments, he added.
He pointed out that last month alone the States’ website was down for nearly 11 hours through 19 outages – but during other months it’s been down for nearly 30 hours
“No explanation to service users, no apology, no recognition that the outage event even occurred. This is a long-standing issue that remains unresolved,” said Deputy Cameron.
“The prolonged outages of gov.gg over the past three years persist, with a resolution only now being pursued through a tender process.
“We have to improve the experience of service users… an efficient civil service can only be achieved once a solid IT foundation has been implemented, what we currently have is nowhere close, and is seriously impacting staff moral as a result.”
P&R insists it is working at pace to implement the highest-impact recommendations first to bolster IT resilience, but new investment into IT has yet to be approved via the Government Work Plan.
The States were supposed to consider the GWP in the summer, but it has been adjourned multiple times and won’t be considered until January 2024 at the earliest.
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