Mega council officers had no idea what they were buying ahead of Oracle fiasco

Council officers heading up a disastrous Oracle implementation that left Europe's largest local authority unable to manage its finances lacked an understanding of the cloud-based solution they had chosen to buy. Birmingham City Council went live with Oracle Fusion – a cloud-based ERP, finance, and HR system – in April 2022. …

[Rameses Niblick the Third Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where's My Thribble?]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

As ... someone more than capable of doing 99% of their IT departments jobs

Oh really? And what are the IT departments jobs jobs at a large unitary authority? And if you're so amazing, why don't you work there?

It always amuses me that people who've never worked in the public sector assume the people who do in fact work there are simultaneously useless and get huge amounts of renumeration. If everyone there is so awful and the job is that cushy, why don't you do all you can to get a position there? Clearly the obvious choice, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

The OP kind of reminds me of the sort of techie who goes in assuming they know everything, implement a solution that they believe is right but leaves the business needing to adapt all of its working practices and procedures in order to be able to use it (and if they complain then they themselves are branded ignorant).

[Natalie Gritpants Jr]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

The OP is probably employed in the private sector where performance like Brum council would have resulted in real bankruptcy and job losses, so yes, the OP could probably have done much, much better for a fraction of the price.

[keithpeter]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

@Natalie

Would that be like Asda? Or TSB? Or perhaps Talk Talk? Or maybe the Post Office (PLC). Just asking for a friend.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

Natalie is kidding themselves. Smaller companies certainly go bust if they screw up IT, finance, sales, or indeed anything. However, many large listed corporate or multinational can and do regularly absorb huge costs of failed IT projects either as one offs, or persistent failure for a good number of years.

I worked for a large private sector company that over a seven-eight year period spent around £900m* on two goes at a failed SAP implementation, and made at least six years of straight losses. Much of the IT investment costs were hidden over multiple years in a maze of related company accounts that didn't consolidate up to a single UK holding company, and whilst it would have bankrupted a standalone company, the ultimate tab was picked up by the international, non-UK based parent.

Ultimately the UK business was bundled up and folded into a large UK competitor (you'd instantly know the name of both companies) and the massive IT write downs weren't apparent in the complexity of a huge multi-division asset swap across multiple European markets. As a result of that merger, lots of jobs were lost mine amongst them, but I can assure you that none of the well paid executives were unduly put out thanks to generous payoffs, in a few cases even continuing their miserable careers of failure at the large competitor.

* The actual project costs were around £200m for the first attempt, £250m for the second, the balance was additional customer cost-to-serve, bad debt write-offs because the systems and processes didn't work properly, customer compensation costs and regulatory penalties.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

Must be a Elon bro.

[nematoad]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

...leaves the business needing to adapt all of its working practices and procedures

Ah, a bit like SAP told its victims customers when moving to the "cloud".

[therealmav]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

That sounds just like the implementation of Fusion in a place I know well.

[UnknownUnknown]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

Sounds like a Tech Tween that works for Musk’s DoGE.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

Because, in my own, lived experience, they don't hire you unless you have exactly the right combination of qualifications and cannot see past their own hiring policies to realise a candidate might far exceed their requirements

[Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

A candidate that exceeds requirements can be seen as a risk. If they're over-qualified for a position then there's the worry that they're just looking for something as a stop-gap before moving on to something that's closer to their skillset, and not a long-term proposition.

[Caver_Dave]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

I've had that!

Cave Rescue Casualty Care trained (that took many months of evenings)

Wilderness First Aid trained (multiple times, each at least a weekend course including on mountains and in caves for the practical elements)

First Aid at Work (when it was still an intensive 4 day course)

First Aid at Work (many times I've done it as an hour after the Wilderness First Aid training - essentially "immediately get someone to ring for an Ambulance and fill in this form/page in the company first aid log.")

But I was not allowed to become a First Aider at my previous 300+ people site.

First Aid in a work situation - rule no. 1 is get someone to ring for an Ambulance.

Then you maintain the casualty in the best possible state until the Ambulance arrives. (Hopefully within the golden hour.)

Wilderness and Cave First Aid is all about the first 6 hours as a Paramedic (or Cave Rescue or Mountain Rescue) is often going to take at least that long to arrive.

Apparently, this knowledge made me unsuitable to be a First Aider at work.

[CorwinX]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

Absolutely. If you've managed to patch them up, plug any holes, splint any breakages and keep them hydrated then you're probably on a winner.

If they become unconscious that's not the problem a lot of people think it is. As long as they're breathing OK it's their body dealing with things.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

They probably thought - and I have no idea if this was correct - that your training risked you being an enthusiast who would try to mend people instead of screaming for help and then stopping them from leaking out until the ambulance arrives. That being basically the whole of the first aider's job.

[Tron]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

The first thing that anyone thinking about a PhD should be told is that when they get it, almost everyone will consider them overqualified for pretty much everything.

[Mark Exclamation]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

That's exactly what I thought; we've got someone with a PhD working in a really shit admin position, just doing basic, menial tasks. Can't understand why they would want to take such a position.

[UnknownUnknown]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

Perhaps they have been made redundant from a previous role and their PhD is in another discipline.

Esp. Older workers, discarded.

[UnknownUnknown]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

Or they could be an excellent candidate axed by outsourcing, offshoring, a new management, labelled/viewed as ‘not a supporter of change’.

See Asda, DoGE, most organisations/companies chopping older experienced/expensive ‘domain Knowledge’ workers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

I worked with but not within a council IT department for nearly 20yr. They worked bloody hard for piss poor money often doing weekend cover and midnight shifts for nothing extra but time off in lieu.

Having moved on to the private sector to get a proper wage myself I discovered that my old council employer was about 10yr ahead of the private sector in patch managment and was doing a massively better job with 2 competent blokes than the new business with an entire global department.

[UnknownUnknown]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

Your new private sector job probably has that function offshored/outsourced to a shed in India/Romania/Poland.

Reassuringly cheap as the only highlight.

See TCS, Fujitsu, SCC, HCL as some examples.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

Actually no, they're UK based.

It might be a function of being too big, too many people tripping over each other feet, not passing data between teams etc.

And those two blokes in the council were sucessfully maintaining 25000+ end points with a <24hr turn around for most critical vulnerbilities/zero day patches.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people who work for councils.........

...........only do so because no one else will employ them!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Colour me surprised. Not.

A team of 10 and a server room for £1,000,000? Bullshit, unless you’re paying slave labour wages.

[Grunchy]

Formula 1 Scam

We’ve got this travelling go kart show to fund, and Oracle pays Big Money to get some stickers put on some of the go karts. I think part of those funds gets “kicked back” in party tickets that Oracle marketing gets to share around with unsophisticated customers. Any ERP system could be replicated with a database programmed in Microsoft Access (anybody who gets caught using Microsoft Access for anything in business gets fired and whatever project they had put together gets shitcanned). Thus it always has been…

[cd]

Re: Formula 1 Scam

Railroad in USA ran (might still) a car and engine tracking system for their entire system on Access. A disaster in my eyes, but they sold a copy to a Canadian railroad and I did well training their people to use it.

They had a row of techs in their center with big screens with multiple terminals running on them for "data quality", who were very busy lads. Every time anything didn't work IRL the floor manager typed DQ in entire columns and sent them off.

[jeremya]

Access not so bad

In the early days of Access, I had to write a CRM system from scratch in 2 weeks for my Telco Call center. It had to run with 20+ people simultaneously using a single Access database on a file share

It took notes of all contacts and provided billing data on demand. Coding was Visual Basic.

I had the option of migrating to a SQL server version but in reality, the Access jet engine was highly reliable and much faster - it is an ISAM database after all.

Despite some in Microsoft disliking Access and trying to can it for decades, the jet engine it uses is the basis for one flavour of the Windows registry

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: the jet engine it uses is the basis for one flavour of the Windows registry

This is not a selling point...

[Tim99]

Re: Formula 1 Scam

Not much wrong with Access if used correctly. About 30+ years ago I wrote an Access based shrink-wrap product - My previous background included writing stuff with Oracle, Rdb, Informix, Sybase, and R:Rase - It was split into a front-end with the code, forms, and reports, and a back-end for the data. We shipped it with the Access Runtime Engine, and many people probably didn't know it was Access. It worked well for about 20 tables and a few tens of thousands of rows on a wired LAN with up to 5 concurrent users.

The initial development time on this was very fast, but required more RAM than was typically shipping on a low end PC. Costing it out, we showed our initial customers that we could ship a much cheaper product; even allowing for the hardware cost than our competitors, particularly as we were also selling a "package" were we would spec and install the LAN, etc. We used it on our later, different, products as you could show the punter what they were getting; and could quickly make changes based on the "prototypes". For larger systems we replaced the back end with MS SQL Server with stored procedures, transactions, optimised views etc. The SQL Server products were also OK on the early Wireless LANs, the Access back-end stuff was not. I'm long retired, but the company continues to sell descendants of the original products using the latest versions of Access and SQL Server.

[Tom66]

Re: Formula 1 Scam

From what I remember the big issue with Access was scalability - it's bloody dog-slow if you try to do more than a small businesses' worth of work on it. At one of my old gigs, an electronics manufacturing company, there were some 10,000 components set up in an Access database. Opening that, and making a change, and saving it could easily take 5 minutes. The other issue was access control, ironically, Access did not do that well. If two people were accessing the database, it became write-locked to protect it, and you might only find out when you went to 'save' your row. Usually you did have two engineers needing to update it, as well as stock management and goods in. So it all became a major pain in the arse.

It was ultimately superceded by an actual CRM system which was bought in with actual money rather than just a site licence for Access, but it did work without any major catastrophes like that for a good 15 years. Somehow.

Another company I worked for implemented their own CRM, which worked quite well. But napkin maths was it took one senior engineer about 6 months to do that with all the bells and whistles. It probably would have cost less to buy one in. But, it did integrate really nicely with the on-site production, the engineer had written interfaces to the pick and place machines so that every time an order went out it would automatically deduct all of that stock and a completed board would be registered in a new stock item once it left the oven. So it could be argued that it was worth the expenditure, since it was business critical.

The older I get the more I realise sometimes the best solution isn't the perfect one but the one that just works, it might be a bit slow or a bit expensive but if your £10m+ business depends upon it, then it had better work.

[Tim99]

Re: Formula 1 Scam

I found the use of the standard list combo/drop boxes on forms was often the cause of scalability problems. They would initially try and pull the entire table column across the network, 10 rows were fine, 1,000 rows were not. The simple fix was to change the initial row source to empty, and then start to populate it after the punter had typed in a couple of characters. A default to the equivalent of a LIKE 'xy%' clause was much faster than LIKE '%xy%'.

The locking problem may have been caused by using Data Access Objects (DAO) which normally used page locking, ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) could use row-level locking. A work-around was to use ADO on the user's first opening of the database and then use DAO connections. Ironically the smaller the record, the more likely the problem as more were contained in the page.

The 10,000 component rows should have been easy. One of our customers had a system where a price list needed to be updated every year, the initial prototype system "only" had 70,000 rows in the table. It worked with a standard Access back-end on a wired LAN for 3 test users. The production system needed last year's, this year, and next year's data (200,000+ rows) and 8-15 concurrent users, all of whom were retrieving prices, and adding and updating rows in "customer", "order" and "line-item" tables. As I recall, the whole system initially took about 4 man-weeks to prototype, and a bit longer to put into production. It worked well with SQL Server. The back end HP Tower server hardware used the MS Small Business Server. The customer also ran Exchange, a fax and modem server, proxy-ISA, and a small IIS server on it, normally at <20% capacity.

Most network file systems do not support the ability to do simultaneous reads and writes to a file. Microsoft's solution for a shared database was a "phantom" locking file (.LDB) that was created, updated, and deleted appropriately. If everybody had logged out, and there was still an LDB file, you knew there was a problem. Any networking issue, like latency, or dropped packets caused problems, hence my comment about not using WiFi networks. The MDB file also had to be on a simple standard share, long folder names and filenames could also give those sort of problems (>200 chars).

[Anonymous Coward]

Who made the decision?

So if the IT department didn't have sufficient Oracle experience to adequately lead on this implementation, who made the decision to procure Oracle? Because my team work off a Microsoft stack, the last thing I'd do is ask them to oversee anything Oracle or anything non-Microsoft to be honest. Because I know what their specialisms are. So why do I think this decision was made by either an Assistant Director or even Director who has no idea about technology whatsoever, probably with statements such as "I should be able to have whatever I want" when challenged?

[that one in the corner]

Re: Who made the decision?

> was made by either an Assistant Director or even Director who has no idea about technology whatsoever

But can appreciate "the fine wines and dining that those Oracle chaps provide, I mean those chaps really know an awful lot, I had no idea how that Côtes du Rhône was available as a rosé. If they are this good at subtle things like vintages then they must be really good at all that software stuff."

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Who made the decision?

Based on some bitter first hand experience of public sector procurement, the HR/Finance people would have been in the driving seat and ignored any screams of "Don't buy Oracle" from the IT department.

[0laf]

Re: Who made the decision?

Probably head of finance, might well have not even invited anyone for IT to chat about the new system if they didn't like the IT people ot thought they might have to share credit. Migtht have been signed by an outgoing manager that couldn't be bothered to read anything. Might not even have been signed, plenty of big council contracts have no actual written contracts.

No need to guess though, it's acessible under FOI, just ask.

[collinsl]

Re: Who made the decision?

No need to guess though, it's acessible under FOI, just ask.

"Sorry, we can't provide that, it was lost in the SAP transition"

That'll be a common excuse now, just like Sir Humphrey's floods of the winter of 1967

[BlueLightTech]

Re: Who made the decision?

This, all of this, every time. As an experienced IT tech you can scream until you're blue in the face that its the wrong decision, but you wont be listened to.

[chivo243]

Re: Who made the decision?

Sorry, drifted off there for a second, thought I was reading a BOFH... Directors making decisions...

[Acrimonius]

Re: Who made the decision?

What alternatives were offered? If any, comparison will have been very subjective with no like for like as is the case for these ventures. So subjective that it could be easily manipulated. In reality a comparison is very difficult as equivalent data across all the alternatives is probably not offered or viable. All are in fact likely to go wrong during implementation and who is to say which one will be the least pain. How is excessive pain in any case defined? Like comparing apples and oranges. Net result, with time ticking away, this is all we have and fingers crossed.

[rg287]

Officers' understanding of the system was "limited," meaning they relied on external partners to design the solution and manage the program, the report says. At the same time, the Digital and Customer Services directorate's lack of Oracle knowledge meant it struggled to act as an "intelligent customer" and critique the work of systems integrator Evosys or other suppliers.

This is just correctly-implemented government policy since 1980 though, no?

The public sector should not employ specialists - just a few contract managers to get the efficient(!) private sector to do it for them. Worked famously well for RailTrack, which actively spurned engineering expertise and was envisioned purely as a contract-management agency, which was why the manager in charge of the area around Potters Bar didn't understand that the reports of the rails being shagged required immediate and urgent repair, not "that's fine, they're booked for grinding next week".

Most councils are incompetent to some extent, and this is by design - successive descoping and deskilling in favour of centrally-mandated outsourcing or central-government control (which means nothing gets done because there isn't the political bandwidth in Westminster to be making local/regional decisions). And I don't mean this to offend individuals or individual teams - but at an organisational level, these skills are often not as deep as they really ought to be, simply because of the way councils have been pushed to outsource, cut headcount, etc which leaves them at the mercy of the vendors and consultants who advise them on anything outside the core competencies.

It's long past time we devolved power back to councils, skilled them up, burnt the PFIs and got back - if not entirely - to the days of more powerful local authorities (who - let's not forget - built the motorways) who have the power, funding and skills to deliver public services and infrastructure without spending half their time bowing and scraping at the Treasury's doors begging for scraps.

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew of a Police authority who outsourced their IT. Then outsourced the management of their IT outsourcing contract.

[zuckzuckgo]

> Officers' understanding of the system was "limited," meaning they relied on external partners to design the solution and manage the program, the report says.

external partners === politically selected experts === experts at being politically selected.

[Phil O'Sophical]

It's long past time we devolved power back to councils, skilled them up, burnt the PFIs and got back - if not entirely - to the days of more powerful local authorities (who - let's not forget - built the motorways)

Motorways were built by the Road Construction Units, staffed by a mix of local and Westminster government employees but run by the Ministry of Transport who set standards and controlled the money.

Personally I've never seen a local authority that could consistently find its own arse with both hands, they tend to be composed of retired or unemployed middle managers who can't bear not being in charge of something, together with some idealistic younger folks who think they can change the world but have no understanding of economic reality.

[Tim99]

My late father was the Treasurer of a local authority. He oversaw the successful installation and operation of one of the early Local Government computer systems in the mid-to-late 1960s. As well as being very bright he could run rings around almost anybody, if he thought it was the right thing to do (in the interest of the general public). I suspect that his skills were enhanced as he had been an aircrew squadron Navigation Officer, and later a Bombing Leader in WW2. Then, after flying considerably more than a tour of operations, he was tasked with helping coordinate RAF, Coastal Command, and USAAF missions; as apparently the "senior commanders" could not get on with one-another.

[John Sager]

Not too many of that calibre & experience these days. Wartime often lets the good ones float towards the top by necessity. As for local authorities, I once read somewhere that Maggie took a lot of their powers away because she was so horrified by the incompetence she found at that level.

[Terry 6]

You mighthave read that. I lived through it. She took powers away from local authorities because they stood up to policies that she wanted to impose becaue of her idealogy, but which local voters did not want.

[goodjudge]

The downvoter has forgotten the GLC, which was abolished solely because Maggie hated Ken Livingstone - the man as well as his politics.

[rg287]

Motorways were built by the Road Construction Units, staffed by a mix of local and Westminster government employees but run by the Ministry of Transport who set standards and controlled the money.

The Motorway Network was designed and funded by the Ministry of Transport, but delivered locally, as was the case for many non-M strategic roads - which is why you get oddities like the A50 being tarmac in one county and concrete in another.

Britain's first stretch of motorway - the Preston Bypass (now part of the M6) - was built by Lancashire County Council, back in the days when we had big powerful councils with meaningful in-house surveying and public works departments. It set the template for the Special Roads Act.

The first 26miles of the M5 were build with Worcestershire County Council acting as engineer, in many cases doing a better job than government - for instance the CC, Police and County Surveyor had to make repeated representations to the MoT that it ought to be 3 lanes (the government wanted to cut corners and build a dual carriageway - some things never change!). Southerly sections where built with Gloucestershire and Devon County Councils acting as engineer.

So yes, it was collaborative - but Westminster laid out a strategic map and provided the money for the Councils to get on and commission the actual work. Something that would be very difficult today.

This was also basically how the US Interstate Highway network got done - the USGov drew up a strategic map, with construction delivered by states.

Personally I've never seen a local authority that could consistently find its own arse with both hands, they tend to be composed of retired or unemployed middle managers who can't bear not being in charge of something, together with some idealistic younger folks who think they can change the world but have no understanding of economic reality.

And yet, your bins get emptied, the schools are open and a road network exists (even if the potholes are a pain because Westminster witholds the cash to fix them, and denies them the revenue powers to do it themselves). No organisation - public or private - is perfect. It's only that local authorities who have to live with that cursed triad of statutory duties, funding coming on the whim of Westminster and limited revenue powers to make up the difference. Central government has all the power (even if they choose not to exercise it...), and private businesses can go looking for alternate revenue streams, or drop products/services that aren't paying their way. Councils don't have that luxury with statutory duties.

[Anonymous Coward]

Few people understand the breadth of services delivered by councils, and that includes people who work for them. Councils are staggeringly complex organisations.

Yes there are poor workers in there like any other organisation but there are also many other people in there who are very good at their jobs and work very hard indeed

[Cliffwilliams44]

Do not your government entities not have mayors? i.e. Executives? Managing projects like this should not be the purview of a Council/Legislature but of the executive branch! Not that most government executives are competent but at least one would hope it's not management by committee!

[collinsl]

Most of them do, but the Mayor is usually just the leader of the council. We don't tend to have big executive-style town, city, or county councils here, most of the implementation is done by civil servants who work for the councils.

A big change to this though is the new "regional mayor" scheme which started a few years back under the Conservatives, but which is now being expanded. The idea being that regions of the country will get a council and a mayor which will either sit on top of or replace the existing council structures - these will have enhanced powers, more funding, and more ability to make decisions for their region (stuff like major road or rail projects, plans for homes etc). Because this is effectively "regional government" they tend to have more of a cabinet style government like UK central government, where there is an executive body.

[Tom66]

I suspect the reason councils appear to be stuffed with incompetent morons is that public sector wages are much lower than private sector. And so the public sector is left with the least competent individuals who couldn't get hired elsewhere.

There is a solution to this problem and it's what OP essentially suggests, bin off private contractors, have councils hire internally, and up the pay to compete with the private sector. In the end, it'll mean the budget shifts more from private sector work to staff salaries but is that any bad thing? Obviously, there will need to be a massive shakeup at council offices, and I doubt this would be done entirely painlessly (plenty of cruft to shift), but I'd actually be minded to suggest that no council should be willing to sign off on a £10m+ IT contract without first asking the very reasonable question of "why aren't we insourcing this?"

[Anonymous Coward]

But the local electorate don't want to pay more for services and the social services budget has priority..

[BlueLightTech]

"It's long past time we devolved power back to councils, skilled them up, burnt the PFIs and got back - if not entirely - to the days of more powerful local authorities (who - let's not forget - built the motorways) who have the power, funding and skills to deliver public services and infrastructure without spending half their time bowing and scraping at the Treasury's doors begging for scraps."

I've been saying this for years. Outsourcing is a false economy. Large private sector companies are brilliant at contract work, doing the bare minimum, maximising profits for something that'll barely pass muster. Most importantly, they *dont care* if the service they deliver is rubbish.

The idea that people working in the public sector are rubbish isn't true from my experience, but they're hog tied by poor decisions made by managers/service owners/project managers that don't know why their decisions are the wrong ones.

[rg287]

I've been saying this for years. Outsourcing is a false economy. Large private sector companies are brilliant at contract work, doing the bare minimum, maximising profits for something that'll barely pass muster. Most importantly, they *dont care* if the service they deliver is rubbish.

Case in point, Stoke-on-Trent City Council are currently having to strong-arm schools to pay their bills, because 42/88 schools have stopped paying the PFI maintenance contractor.

The genius 25-year PFI scheme which expires in October seemingly absolves the operator of any responsibility the moment it expires. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this allegedly means that they are not diligently maintaining the schools they are responsible for up to the cut off, but are basically taking a view of "will it last till October 2025? Okay, let it be, not our problem."

The accusation is that they've basically gone AWOL for the last 18months of the contract, because it's literally not their problem if the schools are rag order when the contract expires, with a huge maintenance backlog rapidly turning into a repair bill as stuff actually breaks.

Thing is, it often is cheaper on paper if all you care about is the bottom line and your financial horizon doesn't extend past the current financial year or properly account for things like deferred maintenance turning into urgent repairs. The final annual bill is less than it would cost to employ some in-house maintenance staff (with pensions, benefits, etc). This is the "correct" thing to do. The difference being that for your money you only get a few lightbulbs changed at £150/go, instead of a team who know the property inside out, touch up the paint in the hallways when it needs doing (where an outsourcer would want to quote you for "renovations") and generally do all the little bits and pieces that nobody thinks about until they break - because with an outsourcer, every little piddly thing is a billable item, and the accountants will push it to next year, every year. Until you've got water running down the stairs and people are panicking.

How many Kier Group staff does it change to take a lightbulb?

Five (and three of them were wearing shirts and ties). Ask me how I know.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Large private sector companies are brilliant at contract work, doing the bare minimum, maximising profits for something that'll barely pass muster. Most importantly, they *dont care* if the service they deliver is rubbish

Indeed. ITIL (spit) goes on about outsourcing "shares the risk". Well, yes, in one small way it does but the largest risk is that the function doesn't get done and outsourcers *don't* care about that, especially if their carefully-crafted KPIs appear to include it but actually don't. And good luck getting those KPIs changed. To quote a large telecoms provider: "Everyone gets our standard KPIs and to change that costs $BIGNUM x $BIGGERNUM".

And lets not forget, costs don't vary much between private and public in IT - a server costs the same to buy and run whether it's in the server room of a public body or an outsourcer. Sure, the outsourcer gets some 'economy of scale" but it's not huge and you lose the ability to actually manage the servers how *you* want rather than the MVP that the outsourcer provides.

And that cost saving gets quickly eaten up by the profit margin that the outsourcer has to make. And they *still* don't care about anything outside of the KPIs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't Oracle at fault here, at least partially?

They sold a hideously expensive system to a customer who clearly didn't understand what they were buying or what they really needed, and (so far!) is costing 5.7 TIMES what was originally quoted, to the point that the customer is going bankrupt. Sounds like "not fit for purpose" to me. Being bankrupt over it, the last creditor to be paid should be Oracle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Isn't Oracle at fault here, at least partially?

What are you, some kind of "engineer" who wants to see things working? That isn't how we Do Business from Austin, Texas: Proud to Be A Cowboy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Isn't Oracle at fault here, at least partially?

This is what I was thinking. It is plain and simple bad sales. They knew the client was clueless so piled in more on the expensive wrong. Knowing that they will be able to charge double to fix the wrong.

[keithpeter]

Re: Isn't Oracle at fault here, at least partially?

"The disastrous ERP project contributed to the council becoming effectively bankrupt in September 2023, with unsettled equal pay liabilities also a factor."

Lindsay Clark's consistent and detailed reporting of BCC's woes and other local authority issues in the UK is greatly appreciated.

But I have to point out that the equal pay liabilities are potentially significantly greater than the Oracle Debacle. Even allowing for the Incredible Shrinking Risk (as equal ops claims have not actually happened to the extent outlined when the original section 114 notice was issued).

"The estimated total cost has gone from around £19 million ($24.07 million) to £108 million ($137 million), with schools taken out of scope."

So does anyone know what the schools left in BCC management are supposed to be doing? See icon.

[Like a badger]

Re: Isn't Oracle at fault here, at least partially?

"So does anyone know what the schools left in BCC management are supposed to be doing? See icon."

They're being abandoned to their own devices.

The official language is that 117 schools are "transitioning from Oracle to become Cheque Book Schools". CBS status means that the schools run their own finances including all expenditure and payroll, or they can outsource some or all of those functions. The schools are expected to pay for, choose and setup their own financial/school management software. Ignoring the risks of local capability, lack of standardisation, you can imagine how inefficient and costly this is going to be. Presumably each school can all sack a couple of teachers to rustle up the money for somebody to negotiate, specify and run their new custom IT setup.

If you read this and think, no, that's just guff from some random geyser, it's far too horrifying, too stupid to possibly be true even for the halfwit councillors of Birmingham, then this link (or a suitable search) will confirm the situation:

https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/29547/transitioning_to_a_cheque_book_school_-_guidance.pdf

[keithpeter]

Re: Isn't Oracle at fault here, at least partially?

@badger

Well thanks for that reply and the pdf. A quick and superficial web search suggests that there are plenty of schools operating their own finances around the wider region.

With 100+ such institutions starting basically now, it strikes me that a resourceful financial services organisation could provide a package of systems and training and do very well. That would ensure that the schools actually have reasonably similar systems &c.

A man can dream...

[Terry 6]

Re: Isn't Oracle at fault here, at least partially?

This has been the case since Local Management of Schools was introduced. Instead of having an efficient, fair and economical central funding and purchasing system, each school has to run as a small business. So they collectively lose; large purchasing deals, shared library and resource centres, centralised accounting, skilled advisory services with local knowledge available according to need rather than budget, SEN expert teams, IT services and so on. Some of these gradually came back over the years, often by schools "buying in" to services. But that means contract negotiations, insecure employments, political pressure ( small p- the chair of governors from St Judas High school wants them to use such and such supplier that he plays golf with, not the one the IT team have spent hours negotiating with, or that the reading scheme has to come from This Publisher because he likes the colour of the front cover, rather than the one the advisory team has suggested, after months of research).

[Diogenes8080]

Re: Isn't Oracle at fault here, at least partially?

Originally the costs due to the equal pay dispute (and various administrations trying to dodge that bullet / kick the can down the road to the next administration) were supposed to be nine times the costs incurred by the Oracle project.

If the equal pay costs are lower, what proportion of the BCC black hole does the Oracle debacle now form?

Whatever the proportion, the actual money wasted would have bought a lot of what the county inhabitants are now having to do without.

And schools? Ah, throw each one a handful of A3s and let them sort it out for themselves. That software manages itself, right?

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Isn't Oracle at fault here, at least partially?

Sounds like "not fit for purpose" to me

Two words:

Caveat emptor.

Or, more accurately - do your due dilligence *before* you sign the contract.

[Doctor Syntax]

I can't help feeling that the ideal solution would have been to have a real consultant on their side. Not somebody who's going to sell them a product, undertake installation, integration, training or anything like that. Just somebody who would, for the duration, provide the in-house expertise they were lacking, act as a devil's advocate. The sort of freelance person that HMRC has been working so hard to drive out of the UK economy

[0laf]

That requires someone who can speak truth to power and an employer that wan't to hear the truth. And unfortunately few employers want that, they'd rather have the consultant that tells them every decision they make is golden than the guy who points out what a crock of shit they have come up with (however politely worded).

[Eclectic Man]

It also requires the consultant to the council not to be motivated to prolong the procurement because they are getting £3k a day and know that if they tell the council to reject Oracle's proposal, they too will be suddenly out of a job.

[Doctor Syntax]

As per my comment below, the critical thing is the freelance approach. A continual source of engagements is the reputation gained by being good at the job, not at being recognised as presiding over a disaster.

[Joseba4242]

As well as paying market rates.

What chance does a council have against some of the best contract lawyers in the industry who'll presumably be paid many times more?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on their luck. Council lawyers are generally paid 50% under the going rate so council lawyers are there becasue they want to be or have to be. Some are consequently very very good and some are very very bad. Largely the cost of action is prohibitive to councils as the main blocker to doing anything legal.

[Doctor Syntax]

By the time the contract lawyers are involved it's too late. The advice you need is to decide what the contract's for.

[Doctor Syntax]

"an employer that wan't to hear the truth"

I said freelancer. Spot the mistaken word in the above.

In any case a client who doesn't want to take advice is unlikely to ask for it.

[Terry 6]

It sounds kind of like a house buyer asking the vendor estate agent to arrange a survey.

[James Anderson]

SAP must shoulder some of the blame.

After all the council had previously spaffed millions on an SAP ERP system which SAP then declined to support any further and did not provide an upgrade path to thier latest shiny products. Its no wonder that the council went looking for an alternative. Sad that the alternative was rubbish sold by an even worse supplier.

If you license an ERP system you are effectively buying the sample application for a really crap programming language.

[CorwinX]

They appear to have forgotten the cardinal rule

Follow the money.

Also "Cui Bono?" Who benefits?

[wolfetone]

Remember 2+ years ago BCC employed an Oracle expert to review what had been done and to say whether it was better to go ahead with it rather than start again?

Where is he today? Is he the cabin boy on Ellison's yacht?

[martinusher]

Masterful piece of marketing, that

These days whenever you read a story about some hapless government or local government entity being reamed for some IT contract that fails to deliver the word "Oracle" seems to be a given. You'd think from this that the actual vendor of Oracle might find themselves in a bit of an uncomfortable position, expecting to be sued for non-performance or some such, but obviously the entire setup is devices so that money still changes hands (even more money if you want it fixed, guv) and blame, if it falls anywhere, never comes back to the supplier.

I'd love to learn the magic formula.

[collinsl]

Re: Masterful piece of marketing, that

1. Have near-monopoly on tooling with some whizzy product which claims to "do it all"

2. Be a recognised brand in the field

3. Outsource all implementation decisions to "arms-length" contractors or better yet, independent resellers, who just buy stuff from you

4. Hire a large legal staff who write watertight contracts which absolve you of all responsibility and who will threaten to sue at any opportunity presented.

5. Blame it all on everyone else

[anothercynic]

This is how it usually is...

... Every major implementation of something in the public sector that has gone south involves a form of inability to know/evaluate something while the vendor/implementor runs rings around the civil servants tasked to deliver it. There is a fundamental distrust by higher management of the experts in one's department/ministry... "oh, they just want to keep the status quo". Yes, sometimes the status quo is *good*. Sometimes the status quo is "keep the lights on and the services running smoothly and saving the council/department/ministry money". And yes, when the experts in your IT department say "oh God, don't use Oracle", they often have good reason to say this!

@Doctor Syntax said further up "I can't help feeling that the ideal solution would have been to have a real consultant on their side". He is absolutely correct in this. Sometimes, that's exactly what you need... someone who *is* an expert in negotiating the complexities of a new system, someone who understands the complexities of usability and a need to sometimes avoid changing processes just to suit the limitations of the software instead of the other way around, and someone who can read through the potential suitors' bullshit. And that's likely what got the Brum CC into this mess - not having someone like that on their side to call out Oracle on their bullshit.

It saddens me really... Brum could ill afford the ballooning costs of this mess, given how they've been taken to task over their selective remuneration policies, and they've had to flog off assets that were a good earner for them (involvement in the ICC and the NEC, amongst other things). And meanwhile, the Oracle consultants smugly smirk into their after work drinks knowing they've taken the council for a nice fat money ride.

I used to work as a contractor in the public sector, and it really got my hackles up to see how consultancy companies took the proverbial piss, and the ministries involved had to just shrug and say "we can't do much about it, guv, it's above our paygrade". It is *our* money, for Christsake... it's *our* taxes that are being wasted. As a consultant/contractor in the public sector, you should be fully aware that this is money *you* and millions of others paid to the council/department/ministry, albeit not directly, and you should maybe be prudent in how the money is spent/billed, not just sit back, smirk, and just let your employer take said council/department/ministry for a ride.

[James Anderson]

Re: This is how it usually is...

For ERP projects to go overbudget, late or just plain fail is the rule rather than the exception.

The private sector has the luxury of hiding these failures unless they are really really bad, the public service is under more scrutiny and have to fess up on failures.

If you think the private sector does thing better have a butchers at this https://www.cio.com/article/278677/enterprise-resource-planning-10-famous-erp-disasters-dustups-and-disappointments.html .

[BlueLightTech]

Re: This is how it usually is...

"The private sector has the luxury of hiding these failures unless they are really really bad, the public service is under more scrutiny and have to fess up on failures. If you think the private sector does thing better have a butchers at this..."

@James you might be completely right, but you know what, I don't give a [insert any expletive you fancy] if some shareholder/business owner messes up and loses money, its the nature of business, you take a punt, sometimes it doesn't work out, its their private money, its the nature of business. In the public sector its different - it really matters that its done right, that its done well, and its done for the right reason's because its everyone's money, it might boil down to old Mrs Miggins 37p, and she doesn't have much, but its important that what she pays in tax gets used right.

[anothercynic]

Re: This is how it usually is...

I don't labour under the illusion that the private sector has it any easier... but at least in the private sector, you tend to have lawyers involved who make sure that the terms of the contract don't shaft you twice to Sunday while you have practically zero recourse... Public sector, not so much (there'll still be lawyers, but not the ones you have on retainer from a large law firm specialising in corporate and contract law).

For me, the big difference here is that in the public sector, it's money that *you* and many others paid in that you spaff up the wall, whereas in the private sector, it's shareholders (you might be one, you're most likely not). The private sector can by all means be dog-eat-dog, but the public sector is there for the good of everyone, including you, so ripping off a department with excessive fees and whatnot is you cutting your nose off to spite your face.

But then again, Britain does have form with that these days...

[James Anderson]

Re: This is how it usually is...

By why single them out for making the same mistakes —- ERP is a con it does not work for anybody but the vendors.

[Terry 6]

Re: This is how it usually is...

At least a part of this is that the senior managers will(see Parkinson's Law- not the one about work expanding etc. There's a whole book full of his Laws) pretty much nod through a massively expensive IT project, but will have first concluded that a few hundred K for an in-house expert team to work out and manage the project t is unaffordable.

[MrGreen]

Not an isolated incident

If this massive overspending is constantly happening then you have to ask yourself, why is central government not doing something about it?

The reason is because the money goes to private companies they all own shares in.

[BlueLightTech]

Re: Not an isolated incident

"Its all good as long as everyone gets their cut"

People don't want to see the truth, a lot of people like to think its just the cut and thrust of capitalism and the markets doing their thing, the strongest will survive etc, but the thing they don't want to admit is that's its not, its more akin so a corrupt 1970's socialist state, when corruption was rampant, and when 10 pairs of shoes are taken from the factory, everyone gets a pair, the security guard, the local police, the neighbours - everyone gets paid so don't rock the boat. Its exactly the same thing.

The irony being that I've watched this attitude gradually increase over the last 15 years, but the decade before that, it was the complete opposite. Make of that what you will.

[Andy3]

Unbelievable. These are the people who run our towns and cities. They are well paid and get pensions that you and I could barely dream of, yet here they are with no idea of what they've bought and installed and are clueless as to how to get meaningful results or reports out of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

You've read the daily mail too much.

Unskilled labour is relatively well paid as most councils are signed up to the living wage not the minimum wage. Everyone above the living wage rate is paid shit especially if you are a professional.

That magic final salary pension that gets pulled out by the red top press like a rabbit every time someone mentions council workers disappeared 20yr ago. It's career average based now not final salary.

Yes the employer contributions are higher than the private sector but that's because the wages are so shit.

They struggle to get people with the skills to do this work becasue they can't offer the wages to attract them. Sometimes people acquire teh skills then leave and there is normally no budget to replace them or even train someone else. So they have to bring in consultants at huge cost and no one has the skills or knowledge to challenge a bullshitting contractor

[Anonymous Coward]

uk are kings

uk are kings...of sniping from the sideline. In fact its so prevelent that there is nobody left who can actually do a job anymore. What could be safer for long term job security than no responsibility.

It just leaves clueless idiots to make the big moves as they are so ignorant they cant even understand what they are doing.

You see it everywhere . Even at the top of politics. See Tory party leaders for details.

[Missing Semicolon]

sunk cost fallacy

The remaining estimated cost would cover a ground-up, from-scratch rewrite.

With the extra benefit of not needing to do it all again when the current product "goes out of support".

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if the council officers did not understand where were the people that do? Did they not hire independant consultants to manage the project? Did they not have anyone capable of stating the requirements and no contract lawyers?

Is this gross incompetence or gross corruption? Who is investigating and who is losing their job or being prosecuted?

Let me guess; no-one. Now ask yourself why.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ultimately the decision will have been made by elected members and senior managers on a board taking advice and recommendations from other sources, consultants internal resource. You can't sack elected members and the managers who made the decisions can likely evidence that they made the decision based upon the evidence presented to them.

Negligence and waste of this sort is rarely criminal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's tweak that last line; it certainly feels criminal to the taxpayers.

"Negligence and waste of this sort is rarely considered criminal by the law."

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't disagree with your tweak or the sentiment. I'm sure we'd all like to see the decision makers held to account.

I think we'd be in a very different place if our parliamentarians retained responsibility for their decisions even after they lose their seats. We might even get some longer term thinking.

[BlueLightTech]

There are no 'independent consultants'. There's just third parties who see the public sector as a cash cow.

[heyrick]

Let me fix this for you

had no idea what they were buying wasting taxpayer money on

I would like to believe heads would roll, but this is local government, those people are untouchable.

[Lee D]

I don't think I've ever worked for, or witnessed, an "intelligent customer".

When people bother to consult me on things clearly, absolutely and directly within my remit, they would get that, but they rarely do and then want to blame me for it.

And when they do bother... they are often vastly disappointed at the answer because I will point out what it's really going to do, cost and need.

[disgruntled yank]

Somewhat off topic

Thanks to The Register, I know what " Europe's largest local authority" is, despite my never having visited Birmingham. If the question ever arises in a trivia night, I'll be all set.

But why shouldn't The Register include "Birmingham" as one of its standard units of measure? London could be 75 centi-Birminghams, a small city one deci-Birmingham, and so on.

[collinsl]

Re: Somewhat off topic

As a measure of what exactly? Landmass? Population? Number of consumers? Ability to manage large scale projects?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that Oracle's whole business model?

So they "did not have a sufficient understanding of the Oracle Fusion solution they had selected" - that's basically Oracle's entire business model. If you understood how complicated it was to actually implement compared to the lovely demo that the Oracle rep gave you then you wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. Yes, I am talking from bitter experience.

[BlueLightTech]

Seems to happen every time there's a big project

I've spend two decades watching this happen in the public sector, and as soon as I started seeing this debacle in the news, I felt it was familiar. I don't know whether the authorities IT department was in house or out sourced at the time of this projects inception, but I guarantee if it was in house, there would have been a chorus of experienced IT engineers pointing out to management that this would be a bad idea, would not deliver what management and the business thought they were getting, and costs would spiral, and I bet it fell on deaf ears. The Simpsons explained it best with their monorail episode.

[Blue Shirt Guy]

Re: Seems to happen every time there's a big project

"The Simpsons explained it best with their monorail episode".

We're twice as smart as the people of Shelbyville. Just tell us your idea and we'll vote for it. You should have written a song like that guy.

[John Smith 19]

The senior officers *and* the Councillors at the time shoudl carry some of the cost.

They are quite eager to stiff Council Tax payers with jail if their bills are not met on time.

Do we suspect the leader of this fiasco has long since move on and "Fallen upward" ?

Rule #1 when dealing with con-sultantants and con-tractors. The answer is always "Yes," unless you want it to be "no."

"Intelligent customer." Are you f**king kidding me?

[Andrew Barr]

I never get this

Surely all councils in the UK will have the same requirements for a ERP solution. Why isnt Central Government procuring a solution that would work for all councils and then it would be standardised across the country, and the savings would be even more due to economies of scale?

I maybe missing a point somewhere.

[collinsl]

Re: I never get this

It's just like how there isn't a central computer system for the NHS, or the police, or fire services etc, nor are there standard vehicles for these organisations.

There could be massive cost savings there for sure, but you're also relying on one organisation (namely Central Government) to collate requirements from all of the involved parties, deconflict them, choose a vendor, work with them to get a system implemented, test it, and then roll it out. This on a timescale which is different in each location to a different budget in each location who will want different features in each location, and won't be happy when their feature isn't available or works differently from how they work.

[Seenit]

I supported a few Sales to large councils and public bodies, and the waste was shocking. Sales would try to steer them towards what was good for their residents and users of public services, but that was far-down their decision-tree. It was refreshing to come across a few who were trying to do right but they referred to their internal battles against incumbents more interested in preserving power in their domains. Sure, they lacked technical expertise but the biggest problem was they never saw their prime goal as serving the public with a clear idea of what that meant.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Sales would try to steer them towards what was good for their residents and users of public services

Now we know you are lying. Sales only *ever* does what's best for their bonuses then what's good for the company. The customer comes a very distant third - especially if the sales weasel can sell them very expensive features that they will never need but sound plausible.