Chris Baxendale, Senior Associate
“In an environment in which every penny counts, it’s only natural to start thinking about where savings could be made.
“On the surface, the implementation of a new social care system might look like a clear contender. After all, why would you pay to bring a partner in to help when you already have IT capabilities in-house? The answer to that question is simple, and it’s that managing an implementation yourself can actually end up being far more expensive than it first seems.
“One way in which that can manifest is in terms of the project duration and—subsequently—total project cost. It can be tempting to look at in-housing an implementation project as a cost-neutral exercise. Even if you need to bring a few contractors in to augment your existing resource, it’s easy to imagine that there’s little real cost to the organisation.
“The reality is very different. One of the main reasons that authorities choose to bring partners like BetterGov in is that we can help them deliver that much faster. Our expertise—in tandem with their knowledge—allows them to take big leaps forward when it comes to the more complex aspects of their implementation.
“That’s not always possible when managing an implementation in-house. Challenging steps like data migration and testing can easily begin to creep, meaning that the total cost of resourcing the project becomes greater. That can even happen if you bring contractors in, because it’s not uncommon for them to end up waiting on other parts of an implementation to be completed. Wasted time is wasted money.
“There’s also the risk that things don’t go to plan. Many of the social care system implementations that we’ve assisted on have been ‘recovery projects’. Often, things have gone so far awry that the only real option is to start from scratch. Even when that’s not the case, even ‘simple’ changes to the plan can result in a huge amount of unexpected cost. An additional data migration can easily reach a figure of £250,000, for instance.
“Should authorities be exploring ways to reduce the cost of an implementation? Absolutely. Substantial savings can sometimes be made when it comes to customising a social care system, for instance. While managing things in-house might seem to be cost effective on the surface, though, it can often prove to be anything but.”
