Computerised payroll plan a 'Laurel and Hardy' fiasco

Millions of pounds were poured down the drain by a computerised payroll system for the Northern Ireland Civil service which never produced a single payslip, an official report said today.

Millions of pounds were poured down the drain by a computerised payroll system for the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) which never produced a single payslip, an official report said today.

Senior civil servants on the project board overseeing the development of the system were censured for not seeing how things were going wrong over nearly a decade.

The report, published by John Dowdall, the Comptroller and Auditor General for Northern Ireland, examined the cancellation of a planned computerised payroll system for the civil service.

Local politicians hit out, one branding the situation as another “Laurel and Hardy fiasco” where public money was wasted.

The contract for the system was signed between the department of Finance and Personnel and McDonnell Douglas Information Systems (MDIS) in December 1991.

However, said the report, the project experienced problems and delays over a period of nine years caused by “deficiencies in the software” and a range of contractual and management issues.

It was finally cancelled in May 2001, without having produced a workable system.

The NICS spent £3.3m (€4.7m) in developing the project and in addition planned savings of £6.1m (€8.7m) were never achieved because the civil service had to continue using the existing inefficient payroll system which has been in operation for nearly 20 years.

The report found that the interdepartmental committee of senior civil servants responsible for overseeing the project was “too far removed” to operate effectively as a steering group.

During the 13 years of the project, nine different individuals held the chairmanship of the main decision-making and monitoring body.

The payroll project would have benefited from the appointment of a senior manager with sufficient authority to assume personal responsibility for the project throughout its life, said the report.

It also said that when major risks were identified during the course of the project they were “avoided rather than managed”.

The project board could have done more to address the “clear warning signs, regarding MDIS’s capability to deliver the payroll project”, said Mr Dowdall.

The warning signs had appeared during the period prior to the signing of the contract in 1991, the report revealed.

“Given the extent of these warning signs the Department should have commissioned an appraisal of all available options, including a proper assessment of the risks involved in continuing with MDIS, in order to establish whether continuation with the project was the most appropriate course of action,” said the report.

The payroll system was acquired by extending a previous 1987 contract used by for the NICS personnel system.

The report said: “The use of this method made it difficult to consider termination when the payroll project ran into difficulties because of the risk of losing ownership of equipment needed to operate the personnel and pensions systems.”

It said a further weakness was the absence of a provision to recover damages in the event of the supplier failing to meet their contractual obligations.

“This case underlines how important it is to get the contract right in such projects,” said the report.

It also identified a basic software problem stemming from a mismatch between the standard package offered by the company and the much more complex requirements of the civil service payroll system.

The standard package had to be tailored much more than had been envisaged, substantially increasing the risk of project failure, said the report.

Seamus Close, MLA, a former Assembly Public Accounts Committee member, said: “This is another Laurel and Hardy fiasco were public money was wasted due to poor management and indecision.”

The Alliance Party member said although weaknesses were identified early in the project and a series of economic appraisals were carried out in 1995, 1997 and 1999, the plug was not pulled until May 2001.

By then “millions of pounds of taxpayers money had gone down the drain”, he said.

Mr Close said it should not take 13 years to recognise failure. While the project was complex, it had been “badly mishandled” by the Department of Finance and Personnel.

“It causes me great concern that if DFP can get it so wrong, what hope for the departments that depend on their advice,” he added.

SDLP MLA John Dallat, also a former member of the Public Accounts Committee, said the report highlighted classic mistakes made by the civil service.

“There are many lessons to learn from this project which drifted on aimlessly when someone in a position of authority should have pulled the plug or pointed it in another direction,” said Mr Dallat.

“To allow it to continue for 10 years was tantamount to pouring our money down a rat hole,” he added.