Shropshire road repairs are delayed by £1m overspend
Road repairs are being postponed by Shropshire Council after major IT problems resulted in what is expected to be a £1 million overspend in this year's environmental maintenance budget.
Non-emergency repairs are being delayed until the new financial year begins next month.
The revenue monitoring report, written by finance officer James Walton, said issues with the IT system used by the council's highways contractor Ringway had resulted in thousands of invoices for work not being dealt with properly.
Issues lasted for almost 18 months between the start of a contract with Ringway in April 2012 and August 2013 – with many jobs not invoiced properly until the problem was fixed.
Mr Walton said: "It must be stressed, however, that works to deal with the recent storms, flooding and potholes are not affected by reprogramming and are still being prioritised as normal. Additionally, the existing Severe Weather Reserve is in place to help manage any unexpected spend before March 31."
The report was being discussed by Shropshire Council's cabinet today.
It said: "Soon after the commencement of the contract, it became apparent that Ringway's ICT systems had significant technical issues, to the extent that the basic requirements of the ordering and payment process were not being met. Problems included completed jobs not being invoiced, cancelled jobs still being invoiced for and some completed jobs receiving multiple invoices."
The report added a review has been carried out of the highways capital programme and found a "significant proportion" of jobs should have been classified as revenue expenditure instead of coming out of the capital budget.
Nick Goddard, regional director for Ringway, said: "We are aware of the comments from the council which we need time to consider, prior to us issuing a statement in the near future"
