Deputy asks for full details on States IT system failure

The States online services, including its website, went down on Sunday 9 February due to a network failure.

States of Guernsey technicians and a team from consultants Agilisys worked throughout the day to identify the problem, with systems restored by about 5pm.

However, it was stated that the underlying problem would take a ‘period of time’ to be fully resolved.

Deputy David de Lisle does not think that enough details on the problem have been given and has now submitted a series of Rule 11 questions to Policy & Resources.

He asked what caused the outage and what the technical online system breakdown was and what measures have been put in place to stop this happening again.

Agilisys – a UK cloud and digital transformation specialist – was involved in the work. Last year it was appointed to use new technology and platforms to create a better customer experience, reduce operating costs and deliver better outcomes for islanders. The contract is worth £200m.

Deputy de Lisle asked what penalties there were in the contract to provide compensation to the States for major technical outages such as this one.

‘Is this outage an early indication of problems for the States of Guernsey by outsourcing the States IT system to a digital partner leading the £200m. digital transformation of all States services?’ he said.

The questions are set to be answered verbally in the next week’s States meeting.