£2.8million for council website as 26,000 face job cuts

Birmingham Wired have uncovered that Birmingham City Council spent £2.8 million on a council website, with their IT system costing the tax-payer over £48 million since 2006. Meanwhile job cuts have put 26,000 staff at risk of potential redundancy.

The website cost £2.8million was exposed after a Freedom of Information Act request to Birmingham City Countil. Many being less than impressed with the outcome. In contrast, the second most expensive council website - Essex Council, spent £800,000.

The website was created by the outsourcing company Capita.

Capita, a London based company state on their website:

Capita posted a recession-busting half-year turnover of £1.3bn, with profits up 15% to £163.1 million, meanwhile many are predicting the "worst round of council job losses for a generation" with at least 25,000 workers nationally under-threat of losing their jobs.

But is the website really worth the price tag placed on it?

"It is widely believed by BCC personnel that the new Content Management System (CMS) – which empowers individuals to upload content to the website and intranet – requires further work before it can be said to function effectively" - this damning statement comes from Birmingham City Council's own report on the website, that can be downloaded from their website.

We must ask ourselves if we have walked with our eyes half open into this current economic crises. No one may have predicted the current economic climate that we are now facing.

However with websites costing almost £3 million a time, and the fact that over the last five years the public sector has been paying on around 40% more than the private sector for IT services - we must surely hold our hands up and say that tax-payers money could have been spent better.