Dorset County Council computer problems continue (From Dorset Echo)
When news happens get involved. Send your pictures, views and video to us by text and email
Dorset County Council computer problems continue
9:27am Tuesday 9th November 2010 in Local News
A multi-million-pound computer system intended to revolutionise Dorset County Council is still not working, according to staff.
At a time when the authority is facing a financial crisis and has to save almost £50million, concerns remain about the new £16 million IT system that was introduced to save the council time and money.
A staff survey reveals satisfaction rates have improved only slightly a few months down the line.
Chief executive David Jenkins admitted there was ‘much to be done.’ The Dorset Enterprise System (DES), the local name for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), was heralded as a major new investment when it came online last year.
Introduced as part of the Fit for the Future restructuring programme, it changes the way the council organises things like payroll, procurement, HR and finance.
But there have been regular problems with the system, with some staff getting so stressed they have been forced to take time off sick.
Some workers claimed a job which previously only took a minute was now taking an hour.
The system still has to shut down a few days each month to allow data to be processed.
A staff survey conducted in March revealed 65 per cent of employees felt ‘negative or very negative’ about DES and many agreed it was a ‘waste of time’.
A similar survey was conducted in the summer to see if things had got any better, and these results were presented to the audit and scrutiny committee. Surveys were sent to 1,000 DES users but only 53 per cent responded. Of these, almost half said they thought DES had not improved and nine per cent thought it had got worse.
There has been an improvement in the support provided but there is more to do to make finding information easier.
The survey also shows an improvement in the views of those using DES for procurement but 55 per cent still feel negative. A separate survey was compiled for those using DES in schools. A total of 200 were sent out but only 68 were returned. The overall feedback is that 58 per cent feel negative with concerns about training, usability and support.
Mr Jenkins says in a report: “A period of disruption was anticipated following the introduction of the new system. There has, however, been no system failure and certain aspects of the implementation have been commented upon positively by our external auditors.
“There is no doubt that the position has improved since the last survey but there remains much to be done.”
Vice-chairman of the audit and scrutiny committee David Harris said: “We have suggested the next report to the committee articulates the benefits the system has produced.
“Clearly the system isn’t liked yet but if you look at how it’s been received in other counties that’s a common element to its introduction.”
Secretary of the Dorset branch of Unison Pam Jeffries said: “The feedback I’m getting is that people are no longer reporting faults because they’ve given up due to the length of time it takes for people to get back to them.
“We’ve heard it’s going to get an upgrade and that may be good and well but the other places where it’s operating, I’ve heard they’re still having huge problems.”
Comments(33)
585
says...
10:11am Tue 9 Nov 10
Doing a search of this website revealed 'Swansea Council has been accused of wasting £2m of taxpayers’ money on a failed payroll system. The system was developed as part of the partnership between the council and their IT providers, Capgemini.'
Perhaps they also supplied a similar system to DCC.
585
says...
10:13am Tue 9 Nov 10
ini.com/news-centre/
news/dorset-county-c
ouncil-selects-capge
minis-erp-system/
RobinofLocksley
says...
10:21am Tue 9 Nov 10
Duckorange wrote:I believe it's SAP. If so, good luck to them. Resource-hungry, ludicrously epensive and difficult (to put it mildly) to modify to suit users needs.
Out of curiosity, which company or companies provided the system?
ViewPoyntz
says...
10:27am Tue 9 Nov 10
RobinofLocksley wrote:I guess this begs the question, if they didn't implement SAP, what should they have used instead? Isn't SAP the defacto ERP system in most large organisations?
Duckorange wrote: Out of curiosity, which company or companies provided the system?I believe it's SAP. If so, good luck to them. Resource-hungry, ludicrously epensive and difficult (to put it mildly) to modify to suit users needs.
Amicus
says...
11:00am Tue 9 Nov 10
valhalla
says...
12:24pm Tue 9 Nov 10
Piggie squadron you are cleared for takeoff.
cordless
says...
12:42pm Tue 9 Nov 10
“Clearly the system isn’t liked yet but if you look at how it’s been received in other counties that’s a common element to its introduction.”
Please name the others who like the system.I believe Somerset laughed when Dorset ordered this system.They said it was cr--p
JamesYoung
says...
1:35pm Tue 9 Nov 10
And there, in one glaring sentence, lies the reason that the public sector needs a scythe taking to it.
JamesYoung
says...
1:37pm Tue 9 Nov 10
One would have hoped that with an investment of this size, the committee would be aware of the benefits that should have been produced - they should be in the business case!
JamesYoung
says...
1:41pm Tue 9 Nov 10
However, SAP has its routes in manufacturing and despite the fact that it has been developed into other areas, its always important to look at the ethos.
There are plenty of alternatives to SAP - MS Dynamics is one which is racing up the best seller lists.
I did a systems strategy for a client a while ago and talked to a number of large UK companies. The experience of just one (one of the two leading membership based roadside repair companies) was that when their parent company, Saga, sold them on, they were able to halve their IT spend by ditching SAP and the managed hosting that went with it.
The problem with these systems is the cost doesnt lie in the licences or the implementation - its the cost of change. My own experience is that if the payback period (in hard costs, not soft costs) is more than 18 months, the investment never pays for itself because costs escalate anyway.
106dl
says...
1:47pm Tue 9 Nov 10
JamesYoung
says...
3:25pm Tue 9 Nov 10
"Computers don't get faster because of hardware constraints, and if you connect one to a telephone line, it is open for the whole world to see. Computers should be used as stand-alone desktop systems"
I'm sorry, i disagree. One could argue that as a society we are becoming too reliant on computers, but that is not the same as saying that everything should be standalone. Sure, every once in a while somebody hacks something, but it is a rarity that real damage is done, if the right measures are in place.
There are only a handful of things that slow an application down. Hardware is one, but that, again, is just a matter of specification. Bandwidth between sites is another - particularly if the person working is competing with people watching you-tube or sport on the BBC. Again, all controllable. Lastly is the design of the application - and that will be where the problem lies.
Implemented properly, the same computers that allow me to buy stocks and shares with split second price updates, arrange credit, manage my bank account, order a book or book a holiday, should easily be able to do what the council wants it to do.
The problem is that this was badly specified. The client i work for at present uses SAP. If i raise an order and want to see who has and hasn't approved it, i have to click through 3 screens. There is no reason (other than bad design) for this to be so.
And i can pretty much guarantee that in order to pick the "low hanging fruit" a decision was made to roll the system out as-is, and fix and improve it in the future.
106dl
says...
5:55pm Tue 9 Nov 10
Look at what was sold to the NHS, who had the wool pulled over their eyes to our cost.
ETV
says...
7:57pm Tue 9 Nov 10
With arrogance like that at the top it's no wonder the system is a mess.
ViewPoyntz
says...
10:17pm Tue 9 Nov 10
I have to disagree here - for example, I think the internet is a good example of how connecting computers together increases their usefulness. And my iPhone certainly works better when it's connected to a network.
ETV
says...
11:11pm Tue 9 Nov 10
ViewPoyntz wrote:You have to choose the model that best fits the requirement. Sometimes stand-alone is better, sometimes networked is better.
@106DL - "Computers should be used as stand-alone desktop systems". I have to disagree here - for example, I think the internet is a good example of how connecting computers together increases their usefulness. And my iPhone certainly works better when it's connected to a network.
Interesting times ahead regarding the cloud, but it's not going to replace standalone systems entirely.
106dl
says...
8:40am Wed 10 Nov 10
A program and the type of computer that runs it, are different things. The first program was devised by Lynda Lovelace before any computer (including Babbage's difference engine) was ever built. Modern computers use von Neumann serial architecture: they do one thing at a time. This was the correct first step in what will be the long history of computing, but paralleled computers do exist, and would theoretically work much better when highly interconnected. The brain is a massively paralleled 'computer'. If we used this type of computer, the NHS system would have worked. The American company that sold the NHS their system knew this; it is common knowledge. In the future we will develop quantum computers that can do more than one thing at a time, and if they existed now, the NHS system would have worked. The other advantage with quantum computers, is that rather than "computer just saying no", it could say yes, no, or maybe.
RobinofLocksley
says...
9:02am Wed 10 Nov 10
Are you sure you don't mean Ada Lovelace? Lynda / Linda Lovelace was responsible for something entirely different |-))
585
says...
9:16am Wed 10 Nov 10
106dl
says...
9:42am Wed 10 Nov 10
Trackerman
says...
10:41am Wed 10 Nov 10
Techie
says...
11:38am Wed 10 Nov 10
.
Without wishing to stray off topic, this is incorrect. As the largest civil IT project ever undertaken it comprises of some hundreds of different systems, some of which have been an outstanding success, some of which continue to be worked on and a small number which fell by the wayside or were abandoned.
.
The whole system has not been scrapped - this would be impossible to do - and the Summary Care Record continues to be developed although it will remain a summary rather than becoming more detailed as planned by the last Government. The big problem is now the Regional Care Systems and the biggest of these (iSoft's Lorenzo) is struggling to gain much ground at the moment.
JamesYoung
says...
1:25pm Wed 10 Nov 10
DCC are not trying to do anything particularly clever, and many, many companies deal with vast amounts of data successfully.
ERP has been around for a decade or more; it's hardly a new thing, so DCC should have been able to make it work.
weymouthfox
says...
9:09pm Wed 10 Nov 10
They are the ones who ordered and altered this highly complex project.
So should they be let go in the next round of cuts?
upweyWell
says...
10:07pm Wed 10 Nov 10
The in house system SAP replaced was liked by all, and caused no problems whatsoever.
This is an example of the top brass making decisions that they dont understand
106dl
says...
8:05am Thu 11 Nov 10
JamesYoung. You say you have to go through three screens to get what you want, but it is just that the system wasn't specified properly. Don't you think Bill Gates lays down precise specifications before he starts on a new operating system, but even he doesn't get what he wants. The only advantage his latest system has is that one has a chance to make a cup of coffee and a sandwich while it boots up. Why do you think that might be? You say many companies deal with vast amounts of data successfully. Factually incorrect. The percentage of inaccurate data inputted into public sector systems is twice that in the private sector. I'm sorry, but the fact that both of you need to brush up on your computer sciences, looks like public sector arrogance. Get back to me when either of you can make your systems work to the satisfaction of employees, or the tax-payer.
JamesYoung
says...
1:08pm Thu 11 Nov 10
I've never been accused of being an arrogant public sector worker before.
In fact, i work for one of the world's largest news and financial information companies. Aside from providing a fair chunk of syndicated news content for the major TV networks and newspapers, provided by around 2,000 reporters worldwide, the company i work for provides stock prices updated several thousand times per second, for stocks, warrants, options, etc. Historial stock performance and company news information dating back 20 years, government and corporate bonds prices from 100 countries, up to the second forex rates for 175 currencies, and much more besides.
In other words, this company knows how to deal with data.
And all our computers (not to mention all the computers used by the banks, financial institutions, news companies and broadcasters that are their customers) are networked, not standalone.
It's a little bit more complex than the council's systems. And it works - without these systems and the systems of the company's competitors, the world's financial systems would collapse in minutes.
As to whether they work to the satisfaction of taxpayers, that's hardly relevant, but i'm sure you could write and ask the banks, insurance companies, pension funds, broadcasters and newspapers who are our customers.
And who said anything about data entry inaccuracy? Its a given that data in a system is only as accurate as the person who keyed it. I'm talking about the ability of computer systems to handle data. And if you persist in arguing that systems can't handle the data, i again refer you to the above.
But please, feel free to get back to me when you have some real world experience.
Techie
says...
4:54pm Thu 11 Nov 10
You continue to simplify the NHS NPfIT by describing it as a single system, which it is not. It is entirely possible that some parts of the NPfIT will not take place or be completed as originally envisaged given the changes announced in September, but the summary care record continues, regional care systems continue (for now), PACS (digital imaging), the Spine, Choose & Book, the PDS demographics service, GP2GP records transfer, computerised prison healthcare (a completely unsung success story which started in Dorset), are all in place and are judged by those who know as being a success. The N3 national network which glues it all together continues to offer new services to NHS organisations and is currently looking at a contract extension. The NHS Choices website receives 100,000,000 hits a year. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
.
To brand the whole thing as a failure rather indicates you don't know what you're talking about.
JamesYoung
says...
10:39pm Thu 11 Nov 10
Tinker2
says...
11:28pm Thu 11 Nov 10
Make cuts, get rid and start from the top. Send the rest on some 'change-management' training and engage the staff.
Told you I was a simpleton - 'keep it simple"
106dl
says...
8:19am Fri 12 Nov 10
Google 'self-replicating parasitic bureaucrats'.
FitterC
says...
8:18pm Sun 14 Nov 10
Duckorange says...
9:45am Tue 9 Nov 10