West Sussex County Council has reported a big increase in the costs of implementing an Oracle enterprise resource planning system, following difficulties in implementiation and a refresh of the programme.
It has now set aside funding of up to £26 million, compared with an original estimate in 2019 of £2.6 million, for full implementation by 2027.
This comes after the widely reported problems encountered by Birmingham City Council in implementing an Oracle system, which contributed to its severe financial difficulties.
An internal report on the West Sussex implementation indicates that the Oracle Fusion Cloud is intended to replace an ageing SAP system by April 2023. The initial cost was based on buying an off-the-shelf system, but it became clear during the early work that the option would not work for the council. Among the difficulties was an underestimation of the complexity of the programme and that it was extremely difficult to extract information from the old system.
This led to a review of the programme in 2023, following which the council terminated its contract with the implementation partner and took sole responsibility for the programme.
Expecting improvements
It has decided to stick with the plan to use Oracle Fusion, saying it has improved since it was first looked at, can meet 96% of requirements and offers improvements in cyber security.
It has also recognised the need for the implementation to be part of a broader change in culture and how people work and is planning to engage a business change partner to support the transformation.
An agenda item of the council’s performance and finance scrutiny committee says it recognised the budget and timelines involved and that the council is in a better position for the implementation, but raised concerns over new requirements of the system and whether the savings originally identified are still achievable.
Update: A West Sussex County Council spokesperson said: “Additional funding of up to £26m over the period 2024-25 to 2027-28 has been approved and was subjected to the county council’s governance processes which concluded today 23 May 2024. The implementation of Oracle and replacement of SAP aligns with our Council Plan priority of making the best use of resources.
"The new system will provide a number of benefits compared to the existing system, using modern technology to provide improved workflow and business processes, improved data quality with enhanced analytics and insight and improved workforce planning capabilities. It will provide improved compliance, simplified, streamlined processes and an intuitive user experience.
"A procurement working group is currently developing tender documentation to secure both a business and system implementation partner to support the programme. The tender process is currently scheduled to begin late June.”
