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VOYAGER BOSS “TO QUIT”

23-05-2008

The Stirrer has been told that Brendan Arnold, the mastermind of Birmingham City Council’s controversial Voyager IT scheme, is quitting to take up a new post.

Arnold’s time in Birmingham has been colourful to say the least.

After a spell with Transport For London, he was recruited by the Council to help with their ambitious Business Transformation scheme – which includes Voyager.

Ever since it was introduced last October, Voyager has been dogged by problems, including late payments to suppliers and – as we reported recently – there are even suggestions that annual accounts may be late (see link here).

During the few years he has been with Birmingham City Council Arnold, insiders say he has built a reputation of someone who is very thick skinned, hard nosed and relentless in his desire to have the system operational by 29th October.

That inevitably meant that one or two people were “rubbed up the wrong way” – including a few senior officers and councillors.  That said, he’s also been responsible for implementing the biggest IT project in local government.

The new finance structure goes fully live on June 2, when managers have to start to using the new reporting tools to manage their budgets.

We’re told that the Finance Dept is under pressure as there are fewer staff to support managers because Voyager will replace many of their activities.

One employee described “major organisational culture problems” at the Council i.e. resistance from managers to use Voyager, not to mention its persistent glitches.

The deputy leader of Birmingham Council Paul Tilsley who is overseeing the implementation of Voyager said he hadn’t heard the news, but would view Brendan Arnold’s departure as a “sad loss”.

Birmingham City Council wouldn't comment on the story saying, "We don't discuss individual employees".

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