"We lost houses, machines and savings". As Deloitte creates the rejected state systems in the USA

At the end of July, 2020 there were details concerning problems in functioning of the systems developed by Deloitte for the American authorities. The company within several years was engaged in development of the websites which constantly failed therefore many citizens of the USA did not receive the allowances intended for them.

According to Los Angeles Times, in 2010 the authorities of California appealed to Deloitte to improve functionality of the state service which is intended for filing of applications on a dole. Everything appeared not as it was planned - in 2010 technical errors led to a stop of payments about 300 thousand to citizens. Moreover, the final cost of the developed Deloitte of a system was $110 million, and it is twice more than initially stipulated amount.

Ten years later a system glitched again, this time problems appeared against the background of activity of the citizens wishing to receive financial aid after dismissal during COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, in June, 2020 Deloitte signs again the contract under the terms of which the company continues to be engaged in development of service for the unemployed in California, in particular provision of services of call center and other functionality for assistance by the unemployed. Deloitte received $16 million more for improvement of a system. According to the The Sacramento Bee edition, under the contract the company still receives about $6 million annually for system maintenance.

Deloitte creates the rejected state systems in the USA

Thus, government institutions continue to spend millions of dollars, involving in cooperation of Deloitte, IBM and other contractors for creation and correction of systems on unemployment even against the background of the growing concern about quality of their work. The impossibility of citizens to submit the application for receiving a benefit during a pandemic only aggravates a situation.

Problems with service on unemployment from Deloitte are observed not only in California. For example, in Florida similar service from this company also repeatedly failed. At the same time some low-quality services, in particular telecommunication, the Titan Technologies company provided. According to Tampa Bay Times, about 3 million workers submitted applications for providing financial aid, but the state could provide privileges only of about 1.6 million people.

More than ten workers from Florida accuse government officials and Deloitte of negligence, claiming that problems with process of submission of requests led to the fact that families "lost houses, machines, savings and advantage".

Citizens of the USA did not receive financial aid because of the disabled state systems from Deloitte

There are complaints and on a company performance of IBM which also often is involved in IT developments for the government. For example, in 2006 the company signed the 10-year contract for $1.3 billion according to which it had to carry out upgrade of a social security system of the State of Indiana. The state cancelled the contract only in 3 years after numerous complaints to wrong failures in payments and other problems. The dispute between Indiana and IBM ended with legal claims.

Nevertheless, in 2010 IBM began to cooperate with Pennsylvania, the company signed the contract for $110 million according to which she had to upgrade a system on allowance payment on unemployment. The duration of the contract expired in 2013, the budget for millions of dollars was exceeded, and the project was not complete. In 2017 the state submitted the legal claim against IBM for a breach of contract. These judicial proceedings continue.

The senior legal adviser of National Employment Law Project George Ventvort considers that both the authorities, and service providers are guilty of the events. Some developed solutions require much bigger efforts, than it is expected initially. Interaction of developers with already outdated systems can also aggravate a situation. Ventvort considers that most likely, the pandemic will force the authorities to wait a little with projects on upgrade and to redistribute resources that nevertheless will cope with flow of requests from citizens who need the help.^[1]

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