After costs for never-used software grew to $1.3M, city vows to improve oversight

London councillors voted to receive a staff report that lays out how the city spent $1.3 million on a computer software that was never used, with plans to tighten up reporting and oversight of future long-term contracts.

"It's critical that we get those policies in place so that they outlive us here to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again," said Coun. Susan Stevenson. "I'm going to support this and work behind the scenes on those policy updates."

At issue is a collaboration between the city and seven other municipalities that started back in 2011 to create a computer system to manage the administration of public housing. The intention at the time was to replace a mix of different programs with an integrated, co-ordinated system.

The software system was never used despite costs that ballooned to $1.3 million by the time the HCI project was stopped in 2023. The bulk of that expense — $933,000 — was spent on BSA Consulting, an outside company hired in 2015 to handle software development on the project. Part of that cost was shared with London Middlesex Community Housing (LMCH), which manages the city's public housing properties.

A staff memo presented at Tuesday's council meeting laid out how the HCI program was managed before its surging costs came to light in through reporting by CBC News.

One issue flagged in the staff memo was that clear and complete status updates about the project were not presented to council.

Some of the updates came through the budget process and fell short of providing council with a full scope of the growing cost, the memo said. For example, one update that came to council in 2018 simply said the project "was delayed due to complexities of the software development" and that the "project budget is expected to be fully spent to complete the project."

The staff memo also said the city's information technology services division had "minimal involvement in the project ... as governance and project management were led by the inter-municipal consortium."

The report recommends ways to tighten up the oversight over future consultant contracts, including regular reporting and "defined accountability mechanisms and reporting requirements."

In 2023, the city issued notices to the vendor that it would withdraw from the program. The staff memo said the software "no longer aligns with current or future business process" and that the city has since developed other systems to manage public housing.

"The Housing Collaborative Initiative demonstrates the challenges of managing multi-municipal technology projects without continuous council oversight," the memo said.

Coun. Corrine Rahman said she supports the oversight improvements, but said there are challenges to council keeping an eye over long-term projects that started before their council terms began.

"While I appreciate that we can try to explore options, I think one of the things we also have to take time and think about is what happens during transition periods," she said.