IT review reveals 'extended period of failure'

The outages brought down internal systems and the States website

A former Policy and Resources president has defended a decision to outsource the maintenance of States' IT systems.

A review by PwC found a failure of back-up systems and a reliance on out-of-date kit were behind four outages between November and January.

Deputy Gavin St Pier, who led P&R between 2016 and 2020, said the review revealed "an extended period of failure".

The outages brought down internal systems and the States website.

The disruption meant benefits were not paid on time and some civil servants could not do their jobs.

PwC's review found concerns about the data centres dating back years.

It said ownership of the data centre infrastructure and responsibility for maintenance was unclear.

It was not covered by the 10-year contract signed with IT provider Agilisys in 2019.

An example of this was when one of the two air conditioning units at the Sir Charles Frossard House data centre failed in June 2022 and was not fixed when the second failed in November.

'Very real failure'

Deputy St Pier said he was surprised by the contents of the PwC report.

"It clearly reveals an extended period of failure," he said.

"The real challenge is who knew what and when."

Deputy Gavin St Pier said outsourcing IT maintenance was the right move

Asked if he felt responsible for the failures having signed the Agilisys contract, he said "contract management" was the main issue.

"We have to recognise the whole purpose of the contract was acknowledging the weaknesses that did exist in the IT infrastructure and the lack of investment that had gone on over an extended period," he said.

"That was, I believe, and remains, an appropriate response to have entered into that outsourcing arrangement because the States did not have the capacity to deal with it itself.

"The fact that clearly things have fallen through the gaps as it were is a very real failure in the contract management since that contract was signed."

The review found maintenance contracts for the uninterruptible power supplies and generator had expired in 2020 and 2021 respectively, and data storage support had only been in place for the hardware since 2020.

Among its 30 recommendations PwC suggested a review of the contract to identify any other undefined areas, and assigning responsibility for air conditioning and back-up power.

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