MyGov project failures laid bare by chief minister

An investigation into MyGov - a project to digitise States of Guernsey functions - has found financial controls were ignored and politicians were not briefed properly on the state of the project.

At the end of last year, Policy and Resources Committee (P&R) vice-president Gavin St Pier announced MyGov had not delivered any benefits and had cost taxpayers £18m.

An investigation was launched, which has now been expanded to include officials from the States internal audit team.

In an update, P&R president Lindsay de Sausmarez said part of the problems stemmed from "external suppliers failing to meet agreed deliverables," adding "there was no sufficiently robust mechanism to ensure that they did."

She said more findings from the investigation would be released next month.

In a series of questions after her statement, a number of deputies raised concerns about the States IT transformation projects, including vice-president of the Committee for Economic Development, Andrew Niles.

De Sausmarez told deputies: "This committee is absolutely determined to establish a comprehensive understanding of how this project was allowed to proceed as it did, and where accountability properly lies.

"This work is being undertaken to ensure that lessons are not just identified, but more importantly acted upon, so that similar failures are not repeated, and accountability is ensured.

"We are also committed to being open with this Assembly and the public about the outcomes of the investigation."

Scrutiny Management Committee president, Andy Sloan, said he had asked for the terms of reference of the review but had not received them.

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