Cornwall Council Oracle Cloud IT project millions over-budget

Cornwall Council's Oracle Cloud Project, which is £3.2m over budget, is due to go live on 1 April

A council has overspent by millions of pounds on an IT system that its own companies refuse to use.

Cornwall Council's Oracle Cloud Project, which is £3.2m over budget, is due to go live on 1 April.

But Corserv, a council-owned company which includes Cornwall Housing and Cornwall Airport Newquay, has opted out of the system.

Documents put the overspend down to time delays and changes to the original specification.

The authority's new system brings together IT services for a number of different departments, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

It hopes to bid to provide back office functions for other organisations.

'Extraordinary'

However, Corserv managing director Cath Robinson said its board was not happy with the level of access the company would have to its own data under the new system.

"We went out and purchased our own Oracle system," she told a meeting of its customer and support services committee.

Conservative councillor David Biggs said Corserv should be "joined at the hip with Cornwall Council on back office functions".

"You are almost independently doing the same things we are, I think that is extraordinary," he said.

Software lawyer Robin Fry, from software licensing specialist Cerno, said major costs overruns were notorious in new IT projects.

He said major software vendors "habitually insist" on offering solutions that may not completely meet the needs laid out by customers at the start of a project.

"Costs then also increase with the supplier requiring unlimited extra fees if there are any tweaks or recommended changes to the original specification," he said.

"Often the council can only keep on paying in the hope that the solution will finally be delivered or abandon the project but then expose itself to fights in court over where the blame lies."