01 August 2008
The Office for National Statistics has been forced to abandon its flagship Odyssey modernisation programme, admitting that planned changes to the national accounts and household surveys will take years longer than expected.
Last year, the ONS was forced to suspend part of the National Accounts Blue Book because of problems introducing a new computer system as part of the £75m Odyssey programme. The ONS has now conceded that the simultaneous introduction of new methods and IT systems was 'too challenging' to meet the deadline for this year's Blue Book and would now be phased in 'over a number of years'.
The wider Odyssey programme, covering a number of projects, had been 'extremely challenging' and had 'ceased to exist' in April, the agency's 2007/08 annual report revealed.
A project to introduce a new Survey Case Management System – underpinning the planned integration of five employment, population and expenditure surveys – had 'experienced serious resourcing difficulties' and would need 'much longer timescales', the report said.
An ONS spokeswoman said: 'The original plan for the introduction of the new case management system was September 2006, and it is now planned to introduce it in stages, with full implementation by the end of 2009/10.'
The ONS was also forced to slash the scope of its Central ONS Repository for Data project. Cord, begun in 2004, was aimed at creating a shared database bringing together the agency's statistical sources.
A spokeswoman said: 'Although a prototype of Cord was successfully delivered, the approach proved to be too expensive, as well as taking longer to deliver.'
The agency is being investigated by the Commons public administration select committee, which last month heard Michael Fallon, chair of the Treasury subcommittee, warn that it had been 'under extraordinary pressure' from the combined effects of reorganisation, relocation to Wales and efficiency savings.
A spokesman for the Public and Commercial Services union said: 'Staff are angry that many of [Odyssey's] original aims were never realised due to poor strategic management.'
But the agency's spokeswoman said: 'Overall we are making good progress on our plans for modernising ONS.' A number of projects had been completed, she said.
PFaug2008
