Ms Hilary Murphy-Fagan:

The really important lesson from this is that the requirements are translated into a single design that is fully agreed and standardised and signed off before going to the market. One would chunk up the work differently, examine governance structures and ensure that the decision making authority in the governance structures is absolutely clear. One would also ask if the right technical abilities were on the pitch. Some of the skills that are required for a programme of this scale are really deep technical skills that are difficult to access in the marketplace across technology solution providers themselves, let alone retain them in the Civil Service. We must be realistic about what this type of programme requires. Without underestimating the complexity of payroll, which we provide to 145,000 people, it is somewhat less complex than trying to design and drive the major transformation that this programme will bring about. Finance shared services will undoubtedly bring significant benefit to the State, but it is far more complex than the transformation that was required with payroll.