Employees of the UWV want to stop an ICT project worth half a billion euros via court
The works council of the UWV benefits agency wants to go through the courts to stop an ICT project that will cost the organization half a billion euros. According to the staff, the project is doomed to failure and salaries for ICT managers are too high.
According to the board of UWV, the investment of 500 million euros would be necessary to gradually update and replace outdated software. To steer the innovation in the right direction, the benefits service will be joined by four managers. The works council does not agree with this, according to an article in De Volkskrant. The council fears ‘too much control and bureaucracy’ and also expresses its concern about the costs involved.
De Volkskrant relies on testimonials from two employees who wish to remain anonymous. They speak of ‘a chaos that has been going on for two and a half years, which just won’t come out’. This is not the first time that the UWV has struggled with an ICT project. In 2004, construction began on an administration system that turned out to cost EUR 400 million, instead of the estimated EUR 14 million.
In 2008, a new system for WIA benefits was canceled after nearly 90 million euros had been invested in it. Furthermore, a law should have come into effect on 1 January this year to help people in debt to have money left over for their fixed costs. Due to ICT problems at the UWV and the Tax and Customs Administration, this legislation has been postponed for the time being.
The board and the works council stated in a joint statement to the NOS that ‘they will continue to discuss whether the differences can still be bridged’. Should it nevertheless come to a lawsuit, there is a real chance, according to De Volkskrant, that the Enterprise Chamber will side with the employees. In a major project on disability benefits in 2009, the court ruled that the UWV had to reverse the operation. Even then, the works council said that there was too little response from the board of the organization.