15. There had also been contractual disputes about the performance measurement system under which Mapeley provided services for the estate. The system had been developed by the Departments and supplied to all three bidders for their consideration. Shortly into the operation of the system, it had become clear to both parties that Mapeley was devoting its resources to fixing reported faults, and was not undertaking preventive measures to avoid further problems occurring (Figure 4).15
Figure 4: Problems with the performance measurement system
• the system was overly complicated and required significant resources from Mapeley and the Departments to operate; • the outputs did not always provide meaningful information to either party; • Mapeley believed that failure points awarded under the system accumulated too rapidly, leading to unfair deductions which Mapeley considered to be punitive; • the Mapeley Help Desk, which formed the basis for much of the performance data, focused on reactive tasks rather than the necessary balance of planned preventative and reactive tasks; • the waiver process, which allowed performance deductions to be by-passed in certain circumstances (for example, where the Departments' own actions had prevented Mapeley from delivering services) was not applied consistently. |
16. Nearly four years into the contract, the performance measurement system was still not working satisfactorily and the Departments were working with Mapeley to resolve the remaining problems. The estate had been managed internally for probably over 50 years and when it was transferred, Mapeley had been unsure how many calls would be received by its help desk or how many orders for new work it would get. It had also been difficult to get a performance measurement system up and running as the Departments had no previous experience of being a customer.16
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15 C&AG's Report, paras 17-18; Ev 21