UK authority struggles to RISE with SAP, throws another £9M at project

A South West England authority continues to suffer control weaknesses in its ERP system after the council delayed the project by more than a year and more than doubled the expected costs. Gloucestershire County Council said in a meeting last month there were a number of control weaknesses in SAP ECC – which first went live in …

[Headley_Grange]

It's fucking mad this. All councils do mostly the same stuff and if they're not all doing it the same way then they should be and the edge cases carefully managed if they really are necessary. A national ERP spec and procurement with permanent government-employed techs to implement, transition, train and advise on a basic ERP installation would surely save millions and also have the clout in terms of budget and expertise to stop the likes of SAP, Oracle, etc. taking the piss on price, customization and support.

[UnknownUnknown]

Torn down by various Tory and Labour Governments … the remains now embedded in the Cabinet Office, running endless lines of Procurement Framework’s, and producing little of any value. The former Norwich office home to OGC.

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

Creators of SSASM, ITIL, PRINCE2, former hosting and telecoms experts……

[UnknownUnknown]

As with NHS Trusts, School Academy Trusts, District, Borough, County Councils, unnecessary devolution (NHS numbers v’s Scottish CHI numbers), County v’s State v’s Federal Government .::: it’s all a load of cost generative, value and standards destroying bollocks.

[ChrisElvidge]

How bloody much?

£16+ million.

They should have been able to build a fully-tailored bespoke new ERP system for that (no SAP?), and locally employ many short of work programmers.

Who decides the budgets and follows the progress of the project?

HCL should be forced to provide a breakdown of costs incurred.

The council should have to provide (for the residents who are paying for this) a full breakdown of the progress - or non-progress.

(See also: Birmingham.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How bloody much?

Any dump of costs from HCL or the council isn't going to give any revelations. A bunch of people got paid, here are the timesheets' knock yourself out... These types of projects are usually well underestimated by all involved for their own devices. Issues arise and there's no headroom in the project to tackle them properly, some crap gets smeared in and some other bit of original project scope gets quietly forgotten about. I have happened into many companies who have reasonably botched SAP systems and it's getting worse with the push push push to S/4HANA.

The other poster who mentioned a common blueprint for local councils is on the right track but these initiatives don't get up as it's like trying to herd cats getting the recipients on the same page. Then there's very few people who are actually competent enough to get a decent system implemented.

[Mentat74]

Re: How bloody much?

Yeah... but those brown envelopes aren't going to stuff themselves are they ?

[Headley_Grange]

Re: How bloody much?

I've run ERP transitions in the commercial world and it's not brown envelopes that makes the costs open-ended. The main thing is organizations not understanding project management: get a spec, get a schedule, get a budget, get the people, get on with it and if you change stuff at any point after spec. then assume that all bets are off until the spec is signed again. I have a slide in huge letters explaining this as part of my introduction presentation and when I get to it everyone usually wakes up and asks me to explain all that again.

The second thing is poor leadership. The last transition I ran in FMCG was almost derailed by a clique of senior sales guys who refused to countenance any change to the way they did things and their boss hadn't got the skills or bollocks to deal with them until he saw the customization ROM costs I got from the supplier - especially the ongoing support costs.

[Norfolk N Chance]

Re: How bloody much?

Absolutely this.

Too many clients don't realise that they have to provide the business operational logic - the developers can only implement what they're given.

For a company (or local authority) to actually lay out their procedures (the real current happening-now ones, not the dusty file ones) in a rational format takes real effort at all levels - and when everyone else takes a step back because they're too busy. the person left usually has the least useful knowledge.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How bloody much?

Here we go again.. Brown envelopes… blah, blah, blah. Evidence of that happening please?

[elsergiovolador]

Re: How bloody much?

Why are you trying to derail such a nice gravy train?

[airbrush]

Re: How bloody much?

These systems are pretty huge, you'd be waiting a very very long time to do it from scratch. Totally agree they should standardise but it'll never happen, they can't even get a couple of police areas to merge and various governments have tried over the past 20 years. Local democracy needs a reboot.

[Tron]

And they will cut services to pay for it.

Arrange a fixed costs package with a vendor that includes central government moving the goal posts several times during the process.

If you can't get a fixed cost contract, hire your own staff and build it yourself or move back to paper.

These 'upgrades' are gutting public funding and none of those responsible are getting fired, fined or imprisoned. Par for the course in UK politics. Happens in all third world countries, not just Brexit Britain.

[Norfolk N Chance]

Blame the horrendously long chain of marketing and management between the developer and the user.

As a basic task is elevated through hierarchy of managers, the real steps the user needs to perform are diluted and discarded, and metrics dashboards and reports are substituted.

Then their bosses have lunch with marketing, and by the time the specification has been written up and passed back to the developer any relevance has long been lost.

During testing (ha!) the client will appoint some twonk who "likes computers" or is related to the boss to liaise with the developer, who, tiring of the flippant and ever-changing brief, loses all interest whatsoever.

In any case after 2 1/2 years overrun, the original requirements and resources available were so hopelessly misunderstood as to make the project undeliverable.

Coupled with the inevitable creep of standards and working practices during the project, it eventually cost more to finish then it would to rip it up and start from scratch.

See Glen Sannox, HS2 et al for further UK examples - though I'm sure we're not alone.

As an aside, I recently chatted with a NHS receptionist who wrote a spreadsheet to track cancer patients appointments in her department. She could then contact them if and when the appointment was changed or delayed so they still had a chance of attending. She assured me this information was not being tracked in any other fashion, and it hinged on her getting a manager who had edit access to excel allowing her to use their credentials to keep the sheet up to date.

Incredible? Unfortunately I believe it.