CSO system went 80% over budget

A DATA management system for the Central Statistics Office took 50% longer than anticipated to install and cost 80% more than the intended budget.

The system, part of an IT overhaul at the CSO, was meant to cost a total of €10.14m, including a payment of €5.96m to Cognizant Technology Solutions, which was to complete its part of the job in 30 months.

The system was to be up and running by May 2006 and Cognizant was to continue providing support and maintenance for a further year after that.

But it did not go live until September 2007 — 16 months late — and Cognizant had to be paid a total of €9.24m as the CSO requested changes to the original design, bringing the total internal and external cost to €18.22m.

The IT system was designed to allow for all CSO data to be stored and managed centrally rather than spread across different systems throughout the office.

However, the C&AG found that while the CSO specified that certain data, like the Census, would not be stored on it, it did not specify how many other surveys would be stored.

As a result, some data was still on old systems and there was an overlap of systems, with associated costs and inefficiencies.

In addition, three of the 10 new applications requested from Cognizant were found to be surplus to requirements and have been discontinued.

One of the major flaws the C&AG highlighted on review of the saga was that the CSO did no separate appraisal or business plan for the system, even though it formed the greatest part of the overall IT revamp.

The CSO said it had carried out a detailed evaluation of the project and the problems that arose and the lessons learned were documented so that mistakes would not be repeated.