Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez has promised we will find out “where the responsibility sits” after the multi-million pound failures in updating States IT systems.
£42million was ‘wasted’ on the MyGov platform and upgrades to systems used by the Revenue Service.
She told the States that “appropriate financial controls had been set” for the MyGov project but “they were not always effective because they were frequently not followed”.
She said “external suppliers failed to meet agreed deliverables, and there was no sufficiently robust mechanism to ensure that they did”.
“Concerns raised about the project were not addressed adequately or in a timely manner,” she added, and she said that “there was a significant disparity between how the project’s status was reported (including to politicians) and the reality of its progress”.
Over the past couple of months, the States’ Chief Executive Boley Smillie has been investigating what happened, and Deputy de Sausmarez said his work looking at the MyGov project had led to the conclusions detailed above.
“To ensure that this work continues thoroughly and swiftly, the Chief Executive has redirected the work programme of the Internal Audit team to focus fully on this investigation as well as seconding additional assistance,” she said yesterday.
“I wish to be clear: this Committee is absolutely determined to establish a comprehensive understanding of how this project was allowed to proceed as it did, and where accountability properly lies.”
Deputy de Sausmarez was challenged on this promise of accountability by Deputy Jayne Ozanne.
She stressed that the States needs to rebuild the “lack of trust and confidence that some hold in us” after the “huge shock” that had been felt when the news of the wasted £42m was announced last year.
“We’ve had transparency, and accountability, which you touch on, but I’d like assurances that we will know which individuals are accountable, as opposed to broad, amorphous statements, and that we will actually have a sense of clear accountability as to what lay behind those poor decisions,” said Deputy Ozanne.
Deputy de Sausmarez said she was happy to assure Deputy Ozanne that her “very important question reflects the exact conversations that we have all the time”.
“I can give her that additional assurance that when we talk about accountability, we really mean accountability,” she said. “So she will get, as will all members get a very clear idea of where responsibility sits and where things went wrong.”
Deputy Andrew Niles also tried to push Deputy de Sausmarez on the matter of the wasted £42m.
He said it was “important to understand the impact at a household level, about just how much money we have lost for the people of Guernsey,” he said.
“Sometimes, when I reflect on the size of our economy I look at the UK, because there are very many sectors, and the economy size is similar, but different by a factor of 1000.
“Looking at that in the UK context, £42 million becomes £42 billion. And when you think of what the UK has achieved in recent times, or is about to achieve, we could have built the entire Elizabeth Line, we could have built two aircraft carriers, and we could have delivered the Northern Powerhouse Rail system, and that is the same relative value for each household in Guernsey versus each household in the UK.”
Deputy de Sausmarez wanted to respond to Deputy Niles’ point, but she was not allowed under a States rule on time limits during question time in a debate.