Southwest One makes pre-tax loss of £16.5 million

As I mentioned at the bottom of my last post Southwest One has posted a pre-tax loss of £16.5 million.  This is not good news and as much as I think that Southwest One was never a good idea at any point I would rather it didn't start losing money hand over fist as I'm a little vague about how losses are distributed.  SW One is 75% owned by IBM with the remaining 25% split between SCC, Taunton Deane and Avon & Somerset Constabulary.  Both Taunton Deane & SCC seem to be suggesting they will not be directly paying for mistakes/losses by SW One which is probably technically correct.  I'm sure the truth is somewhat more complicated.  SCC had the following to say:  

Somerset council said it would not cost extra money as it was a fixed contract.
David Huxtable, the councillor responsible for resources at the county council, said: "I don't have any concerns or fears about the ability of the company to deliver our services because we made sure we partnered with huge international business and I have security in that.
"We asked people to bid to run our services at less cost to us and that's what they did.
"It may be that they over or under bid for the contract but I feel that is their problem, and not necessarily ours."

Note the Not necessarily ours.  Well that's alleviated all my concerns then - good job David.  I suppose if the worst happens you can always suggest selling County Hall again.

Taunton Deane charged £15k for 'widespread' accounting failures relating to SW One

BBC Somerset are reporting that Taunton Deane have been charged an additional £15k by the Audit Commission for widespread failures relating to the Southwest One contract.  SCC are also due to receive a "charge" for the same reason; the fee has yet to be decided.  I've included the main body of the report below the break along with some thoughts on Southwest One.