A TAILOR-MADE broadband scheme spearheaded by Dorset County Council will be abandoned after it exceeded its budget by £340,000 and there was almost no additional uptake.

Members of DCC’s audit and scrutiny committee were told last week that the Dorset Public Sector Network will eventually ‘become defunct’, but will continue going £200,000 over budget until the agreement between DCC and contractor Kcom ends in 2018.

Costing around £1.125m per year, DPSN went live in July 2012 and currently supplies internet and telephone services to Dorset County Council; East, West and North Dorset District Councils; Borough of Poole Council and over 400 public sector sites including schools in the south west.

The network was deliberately built with more capacity than the county council needed, in the hope Kcom could get external businesses to join the network and recoup the council’s expenses through fees for using the network.

This plan backfired though, as lack of uptake has contributed to a colossal £340,000 overspend which DCC has balanced with £337,000 from its 2014/15 reserves.

In the report presented to the committee, acting director for corporate resources, Jonathan Mair, said: “Despite significant efforts in the first three years of the contract the Partnership and Kcom have failed to attract any other significant partners, despite engaging with Dorset NHS trusts, Dorset Police and Dorset Fire and Rescue Service amongst others.”

County council officers have said they will now wind down the contract with Kcom and are aiming to save £100,000 per year through cutting costs, including ‘encouraging’ schools signed up to the DPSN to seek ‘alternative provision’ if they can get cheaper deals from mainstream broadband suppliers and looking at using the Superfast Dorset network for some of the council’s communications.

To make financial matters worse, it was revealed DPSN could continue to exceed budgets beyond the 2015/16 year by as much as £200,000 every year until DCC’s contract with Kcom ends in 2018, due to increased site connections and consumption of bandwidth.

Cllr Andrew Cattaway said: “The information suggests there’s a £1m risk before we even get out of this contract.”

Head of ICT Richard Pascoe replied: “It should be lower than that. We are balancing the budget this year and there there’s a shortfall of about £200,000 per year after that. The cost of the network for next year will be £1.3m. As more schools leave we are going to be able to reduce costs.”

Mr Pascoe added: “There is tension [between Kcom and DCC], of course there is. There is some safeguarding in the contract between us and Kcom to protect their revenues.”

Cllr Trevor Jones, chairman of the committee, suggested the creation of a DPSN had been a difficult but necessary decision, saying: “Part of what you are telling us is that you have been overtaken by events.”

Mr Pascoe agreed, saying rural parts of the county gave them ‘problems’ with finding adequate broadband from typical suppliers at a time when broadband infrastructure was poor in Dorset.

Mr Pascoe cited similar decisions by Devon and Hampshire county councils to create their own networks, adding: “We are not in an unusual position with this.”