Social affairs City of Bern comes off badly in report on Citysoftnet software

The City of Bern's Citysoftnet software is still causing problems. In an external investigation report published on Tuesday, the city is heavily criticized for failures relating to the introduction of the new administration program. The municipal council wants to implement the findings of the report as quickly as possible.

At a media conference on Tuesday, councillors Franziska Teuscher (Green Alliance) and Reto Nause (center) regretted the incidents surrounding Citysoftnet. Both said that they would take political responsibility. The software for processing cases was introduced in the Social Welfare Office and the Office for Adult and Child Protection (EKS) in June 2023.

As Director of Social Affairs, Teuscher said she felt very affected. She apologized to the employees. "The situation is unacceptable." Nause also apologized. Unfortunately, mistakes had been made.

The municipal council now wants to implement the recommendations contained in the investigation report and rectify the problems with the new software as quickly as possible.

The situation is already better than it was in September 2023, said Teuscher. At that time, the city reported on the problems with the software. For example, Teuscher wants to improve internal communication in her directorate as quickly as possible and increase personnel resources as well as expand business analysis skills in order to better support and train the offices and managers, including for future IT projects.

Additional loans required

A cross-directorate task force, chaired by Nause, is to help with the review. The aim is to develop "optimization measures" at various levels.

"We are taking the problems very seriously," said Claudia Hänzi, head of the city's social services department. However, the report also provides reassurance that the project is on the right track.

All the major problems caused by the software had been identified and solved, said Thomas Alder, the overall project manager at Citysoftnet.

The head of the EKS was not present as she was on sick leave. A representative from Emineo, Citysoftnet's software development company, was also not present.

The improvements that are necessary for Citysoftnet will lead to additional costs. These are currently being charged, said Hänzi. The municipal council will have to apply to the city council for additional credit for this. The city parliament had already approved a supplementary credit last January, the third in total. The project has so far cost around 20 million francs.

Inadequate communication, insufficient training

The report by auditing firm PWC lists seven points on what went wrong with Citysoftnet and how the mistakes could be rectified or prevented in future. The report is dated May 2 and was published by the city on Tuesday.

The report states, for example, that the city lacked internal skills and resources when introducing the software. Existing resources were inadequately planned and there was a lack of process descriptions. Communication was also inadequate.

Employees were insufficiently sensitized and trained, and the scope and implementation in the test phase were underestimated. This was particularly the case with the software development company Emineo. The company had underestimated the project and its complexity from the start of the planning phase and was therefore unable to deliver the promised time and quality.

It is not clear from the report which persons or positions in the city are responsible for the failures. It is also silent on the role of the municipal council.

However, the report also states that technical and organizational challenges are not unusual for projects of this complexity and length. Citysoftnet has been implemented successfully on a technical level for the most part.

The EKS and the Social Welfare Office have been working with Citysoftnet to date. The situation at the Social Welfare Office is more relaxed than at the EHL, although the introduction of the new software at the EHL is much more complex for technical reasons, as was stated at the media conference.

Most of the problems should be resolved by the end of the current year, it was added.

Zurich and Basel to follow soon

Research by the Berner Zeitung and the Bund reported last week on major problems in the social welfare office and the EKS of the city of Bern, caused by Citysoftnet. The software had not worked properly from the outset. This had led to problems for clients, for example when rent or health insurance bills were not paid on time.

There was also talk of a growing backlog of pending cases, redundancies, employees on sick leave and burnouts at the two offices.

Citysoftnet is a joint project between the cities of Bern, Basel and Zurich. Zurich plans to introduce the software soon, as the Department of Social Affairs announced on Monday. Basel is set to follow "in mid-2025 at the earliest", wrote the Department of Economic, Social and Environmental Affairs of the Canton of Basel-Stadt in response to an inquiry from the Keystone-SDA news agency.