In business, and at home, everyone is feeling the pinch.
As such, value for money has never been more important.
We look to make savings wherever we can, especially where quality isn’t compromised.
At home, that might mean swapping Tesco for Lidl.
At work, it might mean renegotiating supplier rates, extending the life of existing systems or cutting back on non-essentials.
If there’s a cheaper way to achieve the same outcome, it should be a no-brainer.
Or so you’d think.
Recently, we submitted Freedom of Information requests to public bodies across the North East.
They revealed that millions of pounds have been spent across our region by public sector on apps, websites and other digital systems.
That, in itself, isn’t surprising.
A good website or app has never been more crucial, and strong, reliable systems should absolutely be a priority for every organisation.
But this spending isn’t on brand-new platforms.
It’s on rebuilding existing ones.
Durham Constabulary alone has spent around £2.3m in the past three years on digital rebuilds.
South Tyneside Council has spent almost £600k rebuilding apps.
County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust spent just under £40k redeveloping its website and launching a charity microsite.
In the multi-billion-pound world of public sector budgets, these figures may seem like a drop in the ocean.
However, in the current climate – to paraphrase a saying from one of the supermarkets mentioned earlier – every penny really does count.
And when these costs are viewed alongside the pressures facing councils, police forces and NHS trusts, they raise some pretty uncomfortable questions.
The most important one being ‘are full digital rebuilds always vital’?
In many cases, the answer is a hard no.
For years, the default response to a website or app that isn’t performing as it should has been to start again from scratch.
Rebuilds are often seen as the safest, simplest option.
Oh – and pretty conveniently – they are also the most profitable approach for developers!
But as that suggests, they are rarely the most cost-effective.
There is a growing body of evidence that repairing, stabilising and improving existing systems can deliver the same results at a fraction of the cost.
Our approach is repairing systems, rather than rebuilding them, is often around 80 per cent cheaper – even when we didn’t build it ourselves.
And quality is never compromised.
So, this isn’t about cutting corners. It is about making smarter decisions.
In these tough times, the public sector has a duty to taxpayers to deliver value for money to the taxpayer.
Our services are stretched to breaking point.
Anybody who drives will have noticed how many potholes there are – but there would be outrage if, rather than filling it, the council just ordered a whole new road.
But that’s what they are doing with digital systems.
Yet much like a pothole, repairing what’s already there is quicker, safer and less disruptive.
So, the public sector needs to think repair first – and rebuild as a last resort.
Of course, there will always be cases where a rebuild is genuinely required. But the current default culture needs challenging.
If the public sector is serious about value it must re-examine how (and why) it spends such vast sums on digital redevelopment.
Crucially, it must also ensure that scarce public money is spent where it is needed most.
In the current climate, that isn’t controversial.
It is just common sense.
resolvedgroup.co.uk