Southwark Council loses legal battle with IBM

Judge said the London council got what it paid for

Southwark Council has lost a £700,000 legal battle against IBM over a problematic master data management system implementation.

The system was put in place in 2006, and after a review in July 2007, the council argued that it was unfit for purpose and of unsatisfactory quality.

Southwark found problems with the user interface, messaging integration, matching strategy, and a lack of reporting capability.

However the judge ruled that Southwark Council had fully understood the capabilities of the system, and decided to plough ahead with installation despite it being an inappropriate choice.

"An analogy is the potential car purchaser who might want an off-road vehicle but, having looked at the brochure for an on-road vehicle, says to the salesman 'That's what I want' and buys that vehicle," the judge said.

"There will be no cause of action against the garage for the car being no good off the road. The salesman will reply, with justification: 'You got exactly what you asked for'. That is essentially what has happened in Southwark's case."

The council said it will not appeal the case, and is now going to assess its current system and look to other vendors for implementation.

"This case refers to the acquisition of software back in 2006 which, in our view, was not fit for purpose," a council spokesperson said.

"We're disappointed with the judgment but we took this action because we believed we had been missold a product. Our duty is to have IT systems that work and that save the council and the council tax payer money.

"We will not appeal. We will now have an internal review to make sure we get the software we need so that we are able to cut running costs for the organisation and we will look for suitable partners to help us deliver this."