IT outage cost council £26,000 but report into fiasco not released to public

A REPORT into IT failures at Adur and Worthing councils was not made available to the public but it was revealed that the incident cost them £26,000.

Funeral directors were unable to book slots at Worthing Crematorium and residents were unable to make leisure bookings when servers at the council failed for over a week in November last year.

At the time, a full investigation was ordered, and the report was discussed at a special council meeting last week.

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However, the report was withheld from the public and instead discussed in private.

At a meeting of the full council on Tuesday, council leader Paul Yallop stated it was “out off his control” what was made public or private and the decision was made by council officers.

He said: “The report quotes the figure the council lost as £26,800, of which £1,800 was overtime.

“It was quite embarrassing for certain officers and it would have been inappropriate to put this in the public domain.”

Worthing deputy mayor Bob Smytherman argued that the council should be more “open and transparent”.