RESIDENTS and local organisations may have had difficulty getting in touch with Thurrock Council on Tuesday 17th September following an IT system failure which rendered the council’s PC and telephone systems near useless.
The fault has been blamed on a single component failure and led to council staff not being able to work ‘normally’ from a PC until approx. 1430 when the issue was resolved.
Thurrock Conservatives have supported Thurrock Council in its efforts to digitize as many transactions as possible, although the party have raised concerns that people without IT skills must not be “alienated” from accessing key council services.
With such a critical failure of the council’s new computer systems, Shadow Cabinet Member for Transformation and Services, Cllr Shane Hebb, has asked how a £1.6 million investment can lead to the council machine being stuck in its tracks for so long after a component failure.
“Phones and email are the #2 and #3 in customer-service communication tools. If officers and councillors couldn’t talk amongst themselves in the same building unless face-to-face, what sort of customer service are we offering our ‘customers’ (our residents) when issues like this occur?”
“I am very keen to understand is what system safeguards should be in place to make sure that we do not lose 5.5 hours productivity across the operation (or 7650 man hours if we assume a workforce of 1500 people). After a projected £1.6m spend on IT upgrades, this is unacceptable”.
“If an airport lost its computer systems, planes wouldn’t fly. If a shop lost power to its tills, people wouldn’t be able to buy anything. The council needs to make sure that there is a sufficient back-up mechanism in place so that officers and elected members can continue serving their customers to the highest possible standard”.
