The cost of building a new Birmingham City Council website shot up by 383 per cent in just four years, it emerged last night.

When the council’s Cabinet drew up proposals to redesign and improve its online services in August 2005, the estimate for the work stood at £580,000 and members were told it would take seven months to complete the project.

By 2006, the projected cost had increased by £1.6 million to £2.02 million.

But following discussions with private sector partners Capita, which is responsible for developing the website, further unforeseen costs of £601,000 were added on, making a total of £2.8 million.

The completion date has slipped several times from the original March 2006 and the council says it now believes the new website will be up and running later this month.

Details of the mounting cost were revealed by the council following a Freedom of Information (FoI) Act request from campaigning journalist Heather Brooke, of the Your Right To Know website.

The figure was condemned by TaxPayers Alliance West Midlands spokeswoman Fiona McEvoy. “This is a staggering amount of money for a service that is yet to be delivered,” she said.

“We really need to be asking why the costs involved have been allowed to escalate so massively over the past four years as to many this will look as though the authority have lost control of the project.

 “The city council claim to lay an emphasis on value for money, but at a time of recession this is a huge bill to land taxpayers with and seems to indicate that they are really struggling to keep a rein on their spending,”

The website is crucial to the council’s business transformation project, which is supposed to save £1 billion over 10 years.

Better IT links will enable council services to be ordered and bills paid via the internet – cutting down on meetings between the public and officials.