Auckland Council has released a statement saying its IT project NewCore is tracking on budget, on time and on schedule.

The NewCore Project Update submitted to the Finance and Performance Committee shows that the project is now 32% complete, slightly ahead of its target of 29%.

The project budget is also on target; with an actual spend of $20.8m within the approved $46.7m budget for the year.

Dean Kimpton, Auckland Council COO, says that the project has also reached several key milestones and is making good progress since its reset phase.

Some of the significant milestones the project reached in the previous quarter included:

• The NewCore Reset phase completed with new project governance, budgets, programme and methodology has been confirmed.
• Following a thorough procurement process, the software programme Hybris has been selected as the main platform for council's eCommerce channel and is now being integrated into the IS infrastructure.
• A commercial agreement with software provider SAP has been agreed to configure the property and consenting elements of the programme, and will eventually allow for all building consent applications to be moved online.
• The creation of a Data Governance Forum to help manage the amalgamation of data from the 3,500 different legacy council IS systems.

Kimpton says, “The hard work done in the NewCore reset phase is paying off, I am pleased it is now tracking well against the plan and that we are able to report that to today's Finance and Performance Committee.

“That doesn't take away from the fact that there is a lot of work for us still to do, and I am determined to ensure that this level of performance does not drop."

She says, “NewCore will underpin the council's platform for delivery of services which, in turn, will enhance our customers' experience, enabling everything online from rates through to resource consents.

“So for us it is incredibly important we get it right, and I am pleased to say that we are now on course to do just that.