Oracle Fusion rollout costs 15 times council's estimates in SAP rip-'n-replace

A local authority on the southern coast of England expects the cost of swapping its ERP system from SAP to Oracle to go from £2.6 million ($3.26 million) to nearly £40 million ($50 million), as the council seeks a new implementation partner for a project that began nearly five years ago. The disastrous project joins Birmingham …

[ReikiShangle]

Can we assume that no experts were involved at any stage of the initial work, procurement, implementation or testing? Perhaps this was handed over as a student project, or was it led by the Institute of I've never Seen Any Of This Before, helped by the College of I'm New At This?

[Rich 2]

It is a constant source of bemusement that local councils and government can so consistently fuck up with this sort of thing. Just how you can prove sintering at £2m and then a while later say you need another £14m(!!!) is just mind boggling. The people who procure this stuff should be made personally responsible and be up for professional (I use the term loosely) misconduct

[tmTM]

Not wanting to defend a council bod for their poor work, but you just know at some point a complete idiot from finance stuck their oar in, made the entire process a nightmare and pushed everyone towards the absolute cheapest possible option.

What council's really need is an 'I told you so' wall of shame.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is surely a bit more likely that a sharply-dressed sales weasel from Oracle did a flashy presentation (with an accompanying expensive lunch for attendees) highlighting how they are a professnial [sic] World Leading Big Company ("Nobody got fired for choosing…", etc), having many other councils and universities as clients (note the silent lack of the word "satisfied" from this previous clause), and the only people at said meeting were similar suit-wearers, with no one with sufficient technical knowledge and (hard-earned) experience present to ask the awkward hard technical questions about "But how will this all work with our procedures and systems", before it all got signed off. (But you can guess who will get the blame when things don't actually work…)

There sadly seems to be an increasing trend at the bean-counting level of IT management nowadays that it's now all about: "Look how much I can spend on external contracts! Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!", rather than "Look how much I can actually successfully deliver", which is really what they should be being judged on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bear in mind, that in councils, not only do you have the usual C suite and bean counters, but you also have councillors who need to stick their nose in and take the glory. .

You know, those councillors who we vote for and have credentials like organising the church fete and grumbling about potholes and traffic outside schools. The ones who have no commercial or project management experience whatsoever.

[hoola]

Councillors have very little input on decisions like this. They will just nod through approvals, there is nothing exciting at the time it is voted on.

This is a toxic combination of sales people bamboozling the council, procurement processes and the shocking culture that companies like SAP, Oracle Captia etc have that the public sector is seen as a source of cash to be ripped off at every opportunity.

Public sector procurement has a lot to answer for as pretty much it's main purpose is to protect the council from being sued by the unsuccessful bidders.

[Anonymous Coward]

It’s always in the contract.

If procurement and/or the Programme Manager do not understand it - “I’m not technical” - they should not be signing it off.

[Anonymous Coward]

^^^ !000 time this !!!

:)

[Anonymous Coward]

"What council's really need is an 'I told you so' wall of shame."

Government local or national has *no* shame !!!

It is always someone elses fault or 'won't happen again' .... for the 13 Billionth time this year !!!

:)

[UnknownUnknown]

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/misconduct-in-public-office

From Rishi Sunak/Liz Truss/Boris Johnson … all the way down to a statutory official at the council:

[Tron]

Look on the bright side.

We are now gathering enough data specific to council fuck ups to be able to accurately plot timelines and price data - how much more it will cost, how late it will be, how badly it will fail, and when services will have to be axed across the board to pay for it. You should not underestimate the importance of having solid fuck up data. Heck, they could flog it to Google - an extra fiver in the kitty.

With this extra data, they can get the A4 pads, 4 colour pens and index cards in early enough to keep track of the finances, pay invoices and keep services running on paper media for peanuts, whilst the overpriced shinyware is repeatedly re-installed on the AI W11/12/13 PCs and the debugging and unfucking up process rolls out into the distant future.

Failure is inevitable in the government x tech mash up. To be able to plan failure with solid data is therefore a primary objective. Accurately planned failure is a thing of beauty. You can do no more for your citizens than deliver that.

[Andy Non]

In my simplistic thinking...

Council requirements can't really be very different from one another. How about they all got together and a system was developed at national level they could all use and streamline their working practices around this system. Capita not invited to tender. No you are right... too many bureaucrats would dine out on the system indefinitely and it would be a case of one-system fits nobody, ten years late and massively over budget anyway. Sigh.

[Headley_Grange]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

Beat me to it!

[Mishak]

ten years late and massively over budget

You must be an optimist - you forgot to mention "cancelled", like a number of national NHS systems...

[Plest]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

Simple.....way too many fat pigs want to get their shit covered snouts in the troughs!

[hoola]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

If you are talking about the private sector companies tendering and doing the work then yes.

[AMBxx]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

Then everyone would complain about over-centralised government.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure if this is really that much worse a scenario than Oracle screwing this up one big bite at a time?

(muses: Are these sort of systems really something that PostgreSQL (or MariaDB) isn't equally able to do, and probably much more cheaply? I've written LAMP-based database systems in my time, not at super-huge scale, admittedly, but, if you have suitable technical skills, it's not the absolute hardest thing in the world.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

I doubt the problem here is the actual database at the core of the system, but all the software and processes around it.

[Killfalcon]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

"I just need it to replicate what the old system did, including the export to MagnusSheets97"

"MagnusSheets97 that went out of support in 2003"

"Do you have budget to replace MagnusSheets97?"

"No"

"Then your system needs to talk to MagnusSheets97. End of discussion"

*project manager adds another 20k to the budget to build yet another shim*

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

Well, requirements management needs skills on both sides. While ERP isn't simple: it's a lot more than say a simple web shop, it is doable but you will need to understand the demands of a system that is expected to run for a couple of decades, and cope with changing regulations over this time and still be able to produce the relevant reports. SAP does at least do ERP "right", which is why it got to be so big in the first place, but the implementation costs of large systems would generally easily cover new developments. But the risks of new developments are sufficient justification for not going that route; Horizon could be a possible example.

There are now other systems available, some of which are even open source. But, again, this is may require having someone with the necessary skills to liaise with the developers. I'm looking right now at a "new" system built on Odoo (Python + Postgres) which has along with a fairly clunky interface, has some odd development choices such as abusing a warehouse system for inventory. Still, even then it's a lot cheaper than the alternatives and I'm sure that even the stuff which I couldn't change myself, can be done at a reasonable price.

[hoola]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

Many years ago Belfast City Council developed a CRM system "in house" that was also available (for a price) to other councils.

I was involved in the procurement for the council I worked at when CRM was "the big thing".

This was a contender but one of the questions was longevity of support etc.

Looking now a quick Google finds this link:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/crm_and_cms_platform_information_102

They now appear to be using a commercial product so presumably their own solution reached a point where it could not do what was needed or was too expensive to maintain.

I wonder where that left those who had purchased it?

[Stephen Wilkinson]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

The district council I used to work for used Lagan as its first CRM, had some great trips to Belfast for training. The pint admittedly should be a Guinness because I definitely drank a few while I was there.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

It's not a database issue. It's understanding the business functions, payroll, HR, receivables, payables, debt collection, procurement, asset management, integration to other council systems. Being. Abel to cope with a payroll run for 5000 to 20000 people (yep once you add schools and pensions it gets probably cripple that).

The it has to be an auditable database compliant with financial and regulations, you need to be able to trace each payment through general.ledger to subledgers to source documents and who did what transaction. & When, who did updates and when. Then there is security compliance and auditability of that. This stuff is millions of lines of code. Each year needs payroll legislation updates let along other finance and procurement legislative updates than come along. You need then the backing to deal with issues should something critical occur say on a payment run or payday, and that resolution need to be audited, you can't just fiddle with the database.

When happens then is you end up with procuring a generic system that is configured to as best a match to your needs as possible, and each council does have suffering needs to some degree based on being a city/county/unitary/local social needs.

Now sling in them interfaces to properly, highways, social care systems throwing thousands of financial transactions a day for receivables and payables.

On the whole 'a lamp system' is not even scratching the surface of requirements.

Once you get past that then you can start looking at the grief of public sector procurement, as said already it's about being seen to be unbias to mitigate any potential law suit as there are companies out there who will sue just to get a slice of the pie.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

Did you ever work on the Horizon system design ? :)

[Charlie Clark]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

There is one main problem: the councils and departments don't really have the skills to know what they need (though they may well think they know what they want). Add to this the pressure from central government to "modernise" and be ready for e-government and mix it with someone pointing out the downside risk of not going with an established player. The decision makers will then be putty in the hands of some well-groomed, spoken and rehearsed consultants aka CoFH™.

And here comes Simon. He's had his throat genetically modified so that his breath always smells sweet…

[Andy Non]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

"departments don't really have the skills to know what they need"

I discovered this when working in house for a very large manufacturing organisation. I'd be tasked to replace a plethora of spreadsheets and pen+paper systems that had spawned all over the place with a more efficient joined-up solution. The directors saying it'll only take you a couple of months, the dept heads providing me with business processes and "how things work". By the time I talked to the end users, it was apparent their bosses had no real idea of how the business actually worked at the sharp end, what data was there, how it was processed in detail etc. Countless non-standard scenarios had to be handled and there are always the "ah this big customer always places orders with us in this custom way". Eventually I'd get a valid spec together and get the software developed but it always took far longer than the senior management anticipated and was considerably more complex than originally envisaged.

It is easy to see how large projects fail without considerable input from users at the "coal face".

[Andy Non]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

As an aside, during my research, I discovered three people were involved in gathering data from a variety of spreadsheet printouts and other sources and typing it into a master spreadsheet to produce ten printed copies of their summary spreadsheets which were distributed amongst the board directors. Apparently the report had been instigated several years earlier, but it turned out that in the intervening time nobody was ever looking at those spreadsheet printouts and they were just binned! Those three employees were subsequently deployed elsewhere in the business.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

But what Councils lack in skills they make up for in management.

Surely two managers overseeing each unskilled person will avoid any task being accidentally accomplished in a competent manner as either you will have a quorum if idiots or endless delays while the managers attempt to cover up their incompetence in the hope that another team takes the blame before their own failings are discovered.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

all local councils will consider themselves something "special" and couldn't possibly join in with the other plebs

[Stephen Wilkinson]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

Every council is "unique" and has their own way of doing things, and there is absolutely no way they'd be willing to adapt into a process that fits all!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

This sounds like your talking about them getting all together and setting up some form of organisation that then creates a standard ERP system that they could all use. Then they could sell it to organisations as what a what a council needs for and ERP system is going to be similar to what any organisation needs for an ERP system.

Now we just need a name for the organisation, how about Divination, and a name for the system, how about Synthesis. What do you mean all I've done is entered Oracle and Fusion into thesaurus.com its not as if a standard ERP system that every one can use is exactly what Oracle Fusion is, same as SAP

[UnknownUnknown]

Re: In my simplistic thinking...

You’d ideally want something like the below which was a solutions provider, technical specialist, infrastructure provider and Hosting Specialist.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Computer_and_Telecommunications_Agency

Torn down and destroyed by recent Governments into a procurement dept attached to the Cabinet Office who do endless round of procurement frameworks..

Here’s another one.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Computing_Centre

It was even in Manchester so already Levelled Up.

[Headley_Grange]

Given that most of what most councils do is the same, there ought to be a national standard and build for council ERP. The councils who do things differently would either have to get in line or pay for a fully customized version - and in my experience they'd get in line pretty quickly. Councils with edge-case needs would have to pay for that, certainly, but the overall leverage of nationwide purchasing would make these costs smaller than they would be otherwise. A national spec. would include requirements for DB standardization and portability to prevent vendor lock-in and require mandatory re-tender cycles. Identical systems across councils would mean that professionals could transfer jobs more easily. Auditing, problem solving, best-practice teams to support struggling councils, etc. would all be better because there'd be no learning curve for the underlying ERP and processes. The opportunities for savings, standardization, best-practice roll-out, etc. could be huge.

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite right too

Maybe it's time to fire up a business to do just this?

[Zibob]

Re: Quite right too

And I'll creating a competing one, and some others will do the same. And then we can all fight for the individual local councils again.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Quite right too

You'd then have to compete against Oracle's marketing budget.

You don't think they got to where they are on technical merit, do you?

[Mishak]

I have just set up GUM

Give Us Money (trading as For Nothing).

[Paul Herber]

Re: I have just set up GUM

and your kick-backs for free.

[Charlie Clark]

If you look at any of the attempts to do just this, they were dead on arrival with the "consultants" onboard at the first meeting and quickly taking control of the gravy train. This is how we got Palantir Everywhere™.

What we really need is an industry capable of developing ERP systems, which means teaching and training the necessary skills.

[abend0c4]

Given how much of their operations many councils have already outsourced (council tax is a common example), it's perhaps not unreasonable to ask to what extent councils need ERP systems at all.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

The opportunities for savings, standardization, best-practice roll-out, etc. could be huge

And plenty of post-politics jobs for the old boys network after they outsource the multi-billion design work to a company that, co-incidentally happens to be run by one of their chums and/or happens to donate heavily to the party..

[A Non e-mouse]

Birmingham tried to "Adopt rather than Adapt", fell at the first hurdle and are now "Adapting over Adopting".

West Sussex are now switching from "Adapt" to "Adopt"

In both cases, it smells like people have been asleep at the wheel.

[Reiki Shangle]

It sounds like too many people have been involved and focused on the meetings to make slogans…

[Anonymous Coward]

Agile, innit.

In the next Sprint Backlog…..

[UnknownUnknown]

Were/Are they adapting or adopting the Organisation of the Solution ??

It doesn’t say past the slogan.

[Howard Sway]

Oracle Fusion

It's aptly named : it promises limitless power, governments have poured billions into it, but have yet to get anything useful out of it.

[Plest]

Re: Oracle Fusion

"fusion" literally means liquifying under effects of heat. We observed loads and loads of hot air and a big pile of melted, liquid shit at the end of it all, product name seems to sum it up perfectly!

[Plest]

Oracle, providing opportunities for consultants to come in, clean up and try to fix horrendously botched projects since 1977!

[Mike 137]

On what basis please?

"At that time, a budget of £2.6 million was agreed. Later decisions were made [...] to reset the programme budget to £14.07 million ..."

Some rather more formal public justification for this than "various delays and difficulties experienced in the programme" would be nice considering the more than fivefold increase in cost. But of course the public services are essentially unaccountable, not least because no ordinary mortal can ever contact (or usually even identify) the people who make the decisions, and government overseers may well close ranks with them and exercise 'oversight' in its alternative sense.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: On what basis please?

I'm pretty sure that if you tried to increase council tax five-fold then "oversight" would appear overnight. Sadly it is just too easy to close a few more services and blame central government for the lack of money.

[Tim99]

Reality

My late father was the Treasurer of a UK local authority in the late 1960s. They set up a system (Sperry??) that managed the Council Rates, payroll, and purchases. It worked. Specialist training was required for a couple of staff, and the population served was relatively small (in the 10s of thousands), but I don't think the basic requirements have become much more complicated since then.

[Roger Greenwood]

Re: Reality

It got a bit complicated in the 90s. A friend worked for a local council (computing dept), at one point they were running 3 very separate systems to do the same thing:- Old rates + business rates (tax on property), council tax (which replaced rates and was applied individually to every adult), new rates system when council tax was dumped. They all had to run in parallel for many years due to non-payers and those in arrears. Anyway it kept him busy.

[xyz]

A picture is worth a thousand words. .

Nuff said

[gecho]

AI

I wonder if AI will be able to figure out ERP implementation, but humans certainly suck at it.

[Richard 12]

Re: AI

It'll just hallucinate non-payments and prosecute random people.

[TonyJ]

Re: AI

Oh so Fujitsu and the Post Office will build and run it, then?

[Missing Semicolon]

How much?

That's £40m/890,000 (or thereabouts). £45 each. That's total population. So, mean household size is 2.4, so that's £108/household.

For a computer system that may even work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine, I'll say it

Anon for what I'm about to say...

I've spent a couple of decades working IT for various public bodies, but most recently councils. My observations have been:

• Generally speaking, council IT staff actually do know what they are talking about
• Management unfortunately don't believe their IT staff know what they are talking about
• This means consultants are paid to do what the IT staff can already do
• Consultants promise the system can do everything the service (not IT) has asked for it to do
• The system invariably doesn't do jobs in the way which fits current council process
• Rather than make staff learn new ways of working (managing people is hard consultants / Oracle / SAP are paid to 'customise' their off-the-shelf software (easy but expensive)
• Council IT staff (who earn way less than they would working in the private sector) left to pick up the pieces and generally blamed for it all

This is generally not down to bad IT staff, this is down to poor project management and poor people management. It's simpler to spend money than manage people.

*Awaits downvotes*

[The Basis of everything is...]

Re: Fine, I'll say it

Big upvote.

I had the "pleasure" of working on a SAP project for a southern council many years ago. There was one particular process involving the minutae of what got printed on payslips. Not the amount, just wording so they could get some consistency across departments and simplify the overall process. This got turned into a dispute about working practices and terms and conditions with the unions insisting on getting so much money for agreeing to the change they gave up and cancelled that part of the project completely. And then got lambasted by the same staff for not sorting out the stupidly complex payroll process.

It was one the most poisonous working environments I ever had the misfortune to be in. Behaviour I saw there would have resulted in dismissal in most other places I've worked.

[werdsmith]

Re: Fine, I'll say it

I've had a conversation with the Business Manager of a much smaller organisation. They have a finance system, but it doesn't do everything they want.

They have been shown a shiny new finance system and are budgeting to implement it.

I have explained that they will not get what they want from that budget (the off the shelf version being sold by the vendor - not what they demoed) and will have to keep spending money to get there.

I've also explained how their existing system can do what they want if they spent a fraction of this budget on it. Not to mention the disruption costs.

I will be revisiting this conversation with them in 18-24 months.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Fine, I'll say it

I worked for a council in the early 90s for a couple of years. You are pretty much spot on.

The grunts often know their job very well.

Their management don't. Don't trust the grunts, and don't believe the grunts know what they are talking about.

The management think they know best, they have lots of letters and qualifications after their name. But, as decisions will always reflect on them, and it is their backside on the line, they will employ consultants to advise. The consultants are out of their depth having never done this before.

The consultants will ask the grunts. and pass that onto management.

The management still don't believe it, so will get more consultants to oversee the original consultants.

Eventually some fudged, borked and fantasy report will get submitted and approved.

It will go wrong.

The consultants will get the blame for not understanding the situation and get let go, assuming they have not already lost all hope and moved on.

New consultants will get employed to look at what went wrong and sort out the mess.

4 years later go back and start again......

I only stayed there for 4 years. Was not sure I could go round the circle a second time.

[Boris the Cockroach]

The blame game runs

rather like this.

Council decides it needs new computer system as old one cant cope with the amount of BS emanating from whitehall.

So.....

Committee formed to discuss requirements and to lay out the basics of a contract.(during which time whitehall changes its mind about something)

Invite to tender and the usual suspects turn up, list a price and the contract is signed.

Requirements are changed as usual suspects cant deliver on time = more money spent

Whitehall changes its mind again and decides the dropped item needs including = more money spent.

election time : ALL CHANGE = more money spent.

And thus the 2 million pound contract becomes a bloated nightmare costing 50 million.

Time for the blame game to begin.

Cant blame the current committee members as they are only trying to run the project the orginal (and replaced) committee members decided upon, and it would be unfair and highly disruptive to the committess the orginal members now work in if the original members are fired for making a crap decision , and in any case , the contract was drawn up and signed off by the council's legal expert (whos just taken early retirement with a large lump sum and been re-hired as a freelance legal consultant at twice the pay)

So lets go after the usual suspects for over charging .. but they say.. we have a contract signed off allowing us to charge for every varience in the product beyond the original plans. In any case .. sue us (that costs another 10 million in court and lawyer fees)

In the end , the system is delivered 5 years late and now 70 million over budget.... and wont process council tax reciepts because thats been missed off the contract.....

PS

You may laugh at a lot of this... but most of it is based on a true story (that didnt involve computers but a rather large council project near here)

[Anonymous Coward]

What a lot of nothing...

It's a shame many comments here clearly know nothing of the details of council work and repeat many clichés... and they are missing one important point...

There have been many successfull implementations of Oracle ERP in councils and other public sector organisations....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What a lot of nothing...

Please name two.

If they exist, they could be used as examples and avoid this kind of thing in future.

I'm not aware of any successful implementations - meaning on time and on budget, performing as required - of Oracle ERP in the entire world.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What a lot of nothing...

You have global knowledge - wow!

[Richard 12]

Re: What a lot of nothing...

Maybe they do, maybe they don't. For all we know they might be a consultant involved with hundreds of installs.

Or one or both ACs could be random numpties from the Internet with zero experience.

Regardless, if the first AC can enlighten us all by giving some examples, everyone wins.

[Dante Alighieri]

Penalty clauses?

Quote 2(K/M/B)

when it is >2X quote - full refund and all additional costs at the companies expense - including any competitor that needs to remediate.

Doesn't cover scope change (cf catbert)

Not understanding the problem is too common as posted above x lots.

Councils never setting action thresholds (ok different from initial point above if needed - direction of travel not a destination) is stupid.

I do NHS and we are shit at changing process.

[Richard 12]

It's only possible to change processes if you have "slack" in the organisation.

People need to have some time to learn the new process - even if it's simpler.

If the staff are exhausted or working overtime (especially unpaid), then they cannot learn a new process - even if it would save them an hour a week - because they do not have the time.

[Ball boy]

Worth remembering

Councillors - the folk that sign off on contracts in these cases - are elected not for their technical acumen or business administration skills but (mostly) for their ability to get elected! The vast majority have the backing of a political party and broadly have to fall in line with party thinking, although this is more strictly followed at Borough and city levels; town and Parish Councillors are far less 'lent on' in this regard. They are also aware they have a 'shelf life' and most want to make an impression: when it comes to seeking recognition for something, the infighting over insignificant trivia has to be seen to be believed!

The upshot is that people without any track record in managing processes or change get to make key decisions, often with a bias towards how they will be seen by their party or by the fairly small group of dedicated followers they play to for the sake of their ego. Granted, some get elected for their stance on a particular issue - environment or whatever - but this focus means they generally don't have the wherewithal (or, in some cases, the interest) to deal with a wider remit.

I speak from experience: I was one that got elected. Personally, I don't think the system is really fit for purpose and it needs a rethink.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Worth remembering

SPOT ON! Having had to deal with some city Councillors in an old role I totally agree. Most of them shouldn't be allowed out after dark without a carer! Put in to positions making decisions on stuff they know FECK ALL about is bound to end in tears

[Anonymous Coward]

At risk of downvotes, I would re-iterate the general point above: many Public Sector IT projects go well, have been scoped out and implemented by folk, internal and external, who do know what they are doing. In my Patch several major NHS and LA migrations and new implementations have gone well, and you won't be reading about them. (Some others - often where there are numerous stakeholders with no-one really in control - have a more questionable prognosis...)

Procurement rules in the public sector make life hard - most colleagues on the inside, including 'bosses', have little appetite for unnecessary risk and would nearly always choose stability over 'shiny'. This is understood, so procurement frameworks strike a balance between not upsetting the apple-cart but not excluding competition or innovation. My personal view in my field, is they are actually weighted in favour of bringing in new suppliers, perhaps to overcome the inevitable inertia of changing supplier. That brings considerable risks, but we can also understand why it (sometimes) might need to be like that...

[ColinPa]

Sizing bias

Some wise person said to me do not budget the cost of you doing it yourself. Budget for the least skilled person in your team to do the work.

You assume that your work will be perfect (and that the other people's will not be perfect, and their work may need to be redone when problems are found)

You will only be working on it one day a week - because you have status and other meetings to attend to - so your x person months of work - will really be 5 x person months.

Your aim is to help others to do the work and not do any work yourself.

Get the other people to come and present early on their ideas and talk it through. Give each attendee a role to focus on - security, data integrity, availability and ask open questions.

You need a Jeremiah whose role is to ask "what can go wrong", and "What happens when this fails", "what do we do when ..."

The solution to what can go wrong will be 10 times the size of when it works.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is SAP in all this?

Why don't SAP have a compatible upgrade to their system that can be migrated to?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Where is SAP in all this?

I used to work in local government. One of the things we did when doing one of these projects was a "beauty contest" like this. Basically, Oracle fell at the first hurdle because what they showed us, while relevant to what we were doing, was only one bit. When we started asking questions about "how do we do x" or "how do we do y", they had no answers, just pointed to all the shiny stuff all the call centre agents were using.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Where is SAP in all this?

Staying with the same supplier usually means costs go up more than jumping from ship to ship.

It's perverse, but such is public sector anything.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a stuck record and I make no apologies. Why 300 separate systems for each council? They do NOT need separate ERP capabilities sold to them all individually hundreds of times over.

Unless you're in the business of job creation / money printing schemes.

[Ian Johnston]

Why do council tax collection, salaries and street lighting repairs all have to be handled by the same system?

[42656e4d203239]

A common thread?

Why is it that the common thread in all these failures is seen as the LA?

Surely the elephant in the room is flying phallic spacecraft to space (well nearly to space anyway)?

Granted, LA project management is sorely lacking and their ability to realise that any project for 'updating' a system will involve way more than just the software is myopic to say the least, but Larry's guys selling/configuring the back end have been involved in enough of these things, surely, to be able, in the bidding discussions, to say "err guys, what you will need to do is x,y,z and all the other letters as well as what you think you need to do"

Hang on... that gives the impression that Larry's guys have any degree of integrity, or wish to help with anything other than the inevitable gorging at the trough of the council tax budget.

[tip pc]

councils need IT experts on their payroll

youngsters will be surprised to know that many councils in the distant past had pioneering tech departments, running their own DC's and employing developers to ensure their software worked.

in the 90's and beyond they got it into their heads that they where not tech companies and would be better served by "outsourcing" those components to industry.

The result is that they no longer have the in house skills, expertise & loyalty to specify, commission & procure for the services they need.

Government even had a department, Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA), that would define design methodologies & principles like PRINCE & SSADM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Computer_and_Telecommunications_Agency

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRINCE2#History

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structured_systems_analysis_and_design_method

[Mad Mike]

Council Tax

And yet they have the audacity to complain about council tax being too low and lack of money. Then, they start cutting back on all the services they're supposed to provide. But, generally speaking, nobody working for the council ever faces the consequences of their actions. With an overspend this massive, it has to be deliberate or negligence at a massive scale. Both of these should result in criminal proceedings against the individuals involved. Professionals should be expected to operate at a professional level with some small degree of flex.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Enterprise Resource Planning?

Can someone tell me why a Council would need ERP software to manage its day-to-day business which is to provide services to its citizens?

[Richard 12]

Re: Enterprise Resource Planning?

Because they are an enterprise!

That's very clear if you look at what a city or unitary council actually does and ignore the politicians at the top.

They buy a lot of stuff, own a lot of assets that need managing and maintaining, provide a lot of services and employ a very large number of people.

Leeds City Council is relatively small. It has an annual spending budget of about £420,000,000.

[RSW]

Here's another not quite the same scale

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/council-officials-underestimated-cost-installing-29086778.amp

[RSW]

Here's another, not quite the same scale

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/council-officials-underestimated-cost-installing-29086778.amp