A new council IT system worth in excess of £1.4million is edging closer after politicians agreed additional funding for the project.

In July, senior politicians at Three Rivers District Council rejected the application for £653,000 to fix its IT software, which is seen as increasingly important for council-run services such has housing benefits, revenues and electoral services.

Councillors said they needed extra information before they committed the cash and instead allocated £200,000 for the proposals.

But last night, the Three Rivers District Council policy and resources committee agreed to spend another £442,981 on the council’s IT, taking the grand total of Three Rivers’ contribution to £642,981.

As these services are shared between Three Rivers District Council and Watford Borough Council, the two local authorities will be sharing the computer costs, with TRDC contributing 40 per cent of the costs.

Councillor Matthew Bedford told members of the policy and resources committee: "It is taking a longer than we would have liked, but we are going to have to invest in order to protect the council’s position and give it something to build on in the future."

The council outsourced its IT service to Capita in May last year and the request for extra funding comes just months after Three Rivers set its annual budget.

This new programme was not included in the original budget and is therefore additional expenditure to that already agreed. 

The representative for Abbots Langley and Bedmond went on to say that since Capita took over the council’s IT services in May 2013, "there was very little investment during that period."

He said: "It was that lack of investment that has led us to need to make that investment now."

But Councillor Paula Hiscocks, conservative representative for Rickmansworth Town raised concerns over the fact that plans were to introduce Windows 7, which would replace the current Windows XP being used by council staff.

She said: "We have to make sure we are not just catching up a little bit, we need to by-pass that. We have got to jump straight to the latest development."

But Joanne Wagstaffe, director of finance at Three Rivers District Council told members that the operating system being used by the council’s other applications would restrict the options available to Three Rivers District Council and Windows 7 was identified as the optimum system.

Details set out by council officers include plans to spend nearly £600,000 on a "desktop refresh" and this will see the computers and laptops across the council replaced.

Councillors could rubber-stamp the plans at the full council meeting on Tuesday, November 25.

Joanne Wagstaffe, director of finance (shared service) at Three Rivers District Council said: “The aim of the ICT investment is to enable the Council to deliver services as efficiently as possible.  This will lead to improved service provision for our customers, including increased online service availability. This, in turn, will help us deliver future savings for the tax payer.”