The work, which will see the 30-year-old unsupported IT system brought up to date, has been going on since 2018 and has already caused delays and disruption with tax assessments.
But now that disruption is spilling out into other areas of government.
The 2024 Guernsey Annual Electronic Census Report was due to be published in January, but is still unavailable.
Guernsey Quarterly Population, Employment and Earnings Bulletin for June 2024, which was due to be published at the start of May, has also been delayed.
A spokesman for the data and analysis team at the States confirmed that there had been problems.
‘The eCensus works with complex, sanitised data pulled through from different service areas,’ he said.
‘It is currently taking longer to receive some of the population, employment and earnings data, which has impacted on the programme of quarterly reporting for population, migration, demographics, employment and earnings. This is as a result of work to replace old systems within the Revenue Service from which the relevant data is then extracted.’
The Revenue Service put all assessments and repayments on hold in early December, as the new modern IT platform was brought into service and the financial data was migrated across to the new system.
‘While these changes have been anticipated for some time, some unexpected issues in respect of the data extracts were identified in January, which impacted on the completeness of the data needed for the electronic census report that month,’ the spokesman said.
‘It was confirmed in March that completing all the planned changes and carefully testing the data extracted would likely also result in a delay to the publications planned for April. Ensuring the accuracy of the data must be the priority, rather than timeframes.’
It is hoped the data will be available again from July, but the spokesman warned that this timeline could be revised if necessary, as data testing continues.
‘The ongoing work will see changes made and tested in several different IT systems, each element needing to be changed and then thoroughly tested in sequence, which takes time in live systems which are also servicing their primary functions.
‘Work is also under way to ensure the accuracy of the underlying data, which is now held in a modern IT system, where data quality checking tasks can be undertaken much more efficiently than in the past. Any changes need to be made with utmost care for customers’ data and the ongoing accuracy of national statistics.’
Guernsey last held a traditional census in 2001. Since 2014 there has been a rolling electronic census, with regular reports published.
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