Joint Venture DRS Saga continues…..

For the last 7 days I have been trying to get to the bottom of the sudden change in direction for the DRS One Barnet project. Everyone working across DRS should have seen the council committee discussion, if not I suggest you take a look here.  As you can see in the exchange in emails with the Deputy Leader here it is patently obvious the service delivery model for DRS will be a Joint Venture. UNISON has provided two briefings on Joint Ventures for councillors which you can view online here and here.  

“A disaster and a waste of money, Southwest One was the firm set up five years ago in conjunction with computer giant IBM, but there has been a bitter & expensive falling out, the company has just begun legal action against the council..”(BBC news 18 September 2012. To view click here)

This Joint Venture was raised by Conservative MP Ian Liddell Grainger speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday 18 September 2012 (you can read the Hansard transcript here scroll down to 3.6 pm.

“It gives me no pleasure to rise to talk about a failed procurement project that has cost every citizen in Somerset a great deal of wasted money and time. Southwest One is a joint venture between Somerset county council, Taunton Deane council, Avon and Somerset police and IBM—one of the world’s biggest IT firms. It is a classic example of how not to do public procurement.”

He finished off by saying:

“This is a national, not a local, scandal. The district auditor gave Southwest One glowing reports. The Audit Commission whitewashed the lot. There is now overwhelming evidence to prove that the auditors were grossly negligent. Southwest One should be—must be—examined properly by the National Audit Office..”