Software issues scupper listing of Super City jobs

Software problems have hit an exercise to collect the job details of thousands of council staff moving across to the Auckland Super City.

A software package designed to work out which jobs are safe and which are subject to change was meant to be up and running on the eight councils' intranet systems on February 15.

It was then meant to go live on Monday, but was still not available yesterday. In the absence of the software, councils have resorted to collating the information manually to meet the deadline of March 11.

The Auckland Transition Agency, whose job it is to design the Super City for a smooth handover on November 1, is responsible for the software glitch.

Last night, an agency spokesman said some technical issues with the job-mapping tool had slowed down its roll-out. Rather than have it introduced unevenly it had been decided to hold off until it was ready to go, he said.

The latest plan is to have the software up and running early next week.

The software is designed to provide an accurate database to show which staff have to apply for a job and which staff get to keep their jobs.

At this stage, the glitch is not expected to compromise the process of finalising jobs in the Super City.

But sources told the Herald the software problem was not a good sign for the Super City.

Merging a multitude of different software products across eight councils into a single system is a huge challenge.

"It makes me wonder how the new Auckland Council will get on with a unified IT platform," one source said.

Said another source: "It's a pain. There's no doubt about that."