New APHIS set to be four years late

A new livestock database for NI will become fully operational four years later than originally planned, MLAs have been told.

Work on developing the new NI Food Animal Information System (NIFAIS) began in 2016 and it is set to eventually replace the existing Animal Plant Health Information System (APHIS) database.

At Stormont’s agriculture committee last week, Brian Doherty from DAERA said that while some aspects of NIFAIS are already working, it will be late 2022 before it is fully operational.

“The intention was that the project would be live during 2018, but […] we did experience some difficulties in terms of the timeliness and quality of the software at that time,” Doherty said.

MLAs were told that further delays occurred when a review of the project was undertaken, and the COVID-19 pandemic has also held up progress.

There was an acceptance from DAERA and the supplier that things had to change

NIFAIS was originally being developed for DAERA by software company AMT-Sybex, but the contract is now being managed by its parent company Capita.

“There was an acceptance from DAERA and the supplier that things had to change while the product was being developed,” Doherty said.

Support costs

The DAERA official revealed that NIFAIS has cost £13.2m to date, but £6m of this is associated with DAERA staff costs and £3.3m comes down to ongoing support costs with the APHIS system.

“The actual cost of software development is £1.5m out of that £13.2m,” he said.

APHIS is a little bit clunky

Although the project has had several delays, Doherty maintained that roll out of NIFAIS needed to continue as the 20-year-old APHIS system is effectively outdated.

“APHIS is a little bit clunky. It doesn’t allow us to integrate some of the other systems that we have developed. NIFAIS will allow us to have a system that is more responsive to farmers’ needs,” he said.