Liberal Democrats slam Council project management

1.46.36pm GMT Fri 22nd Jun 2007

Haringey Liberal Democrats have yet again criticised and expressed their concern at the Council's poorly controlled and ineffective project management. Information revealed at the Cabinet meeting of top Labour councillors on 19 th June 2007 included a report which included no summary budget information for almost 20% of the projects. More significantly the report shows over half the projects are running late or forecast to complete after their "original end date" and a further 20% show no summary date information on which to see whether they are late or not. Lib Dems believe this shows Labour's lack of attention to detail and poor track record of running large projects that have resulted in huge waste of taxpayers' money through disasters such as the Tech Refresh fiasco.

Projects currently running behind schedule include the procurement project tasked to make savings of £2 million. The original completion date was April 2007 but now forecast to finish in April 2009 - 2 years late. Another example is project to deliver The Single Status Pay Review settlement. This was cited as "one of the key risk issues" in this years Council Budget process and an issue which may produce "significant costs". The project to reach a settlement now shows a forecast completion of Jan 2009 from an original completion date of March 2007 - 22 months late.

Cllr Robert Gorrie, Lib Dem Finance Spokesperson comments:

"Successful Project Management is about two key things - delivering on time and on budget. The Council's own reporting shows a consistent and continued failure against both these criteria. The Labour Cabinet seems happy managing a process that produces a big thick report which they either don't read or don't understand. The result of Labour's failure is wasted money, wasted time and a poor outcome for Haringey residents."