The notorious Enterprise Resource Planning solution will replace SAP, but critics point to the platform’s track record with other local governments.
Overall, the transition to Oracle Fusion is worth £14.23 million over the next three years, including licensing and ongoing supoort. Once rolled out, Dorset Council will conduct all HR, payroll, finance and procurement through the system.
The authority has now started the hiring process for a ‘Transformation Program Director’ to begin its switch to the cloud-based system, for which a business case was presented in February.
This was largely based on public sector consultancy Civiteq – then Society Advisory – and the fact that tech support for the SAP ECC6 platform currently being used by the authority is due to end in 2027. Options to extend this do exist, but the software is now considered to be outdated, having been introduced to council offices in 2019.
‘The current solution has been highly customised to meet the needs of professional back-office teams and end users,’ a Dorset Council report said at the time. ‘The customisations have led to the higher workloads, just to ‘keep the lights on.’ The technology is not intuitive or cost effective and requires a high level of maintenance.’
However, there are significant concerns relating to the track record of Oracle within the context of local government. Last year, news hit that West Sussex County Council‘s anticipated £2.6 million spend on switching to the platform had swelled to almost £40 million due to huge delays that had seen the original agreement terminated before the project was fully completed. This mirrored the catastrophe at Birmingham City Council – the UK’s largest authority – where a £20 million Oracle transition wound up costing closer to £100 million.
Image: Prasad Sonawale / Unsplash
More Digital Business:
Virgin Media fined £23.8m for disconnecting vulnerable customers
Focus on tech won £4.6bn of inward investment in Wales last year
Public sector workers need training and upskilling in digital – new research
Leave a Reply