Agenda item

The Audit and Governance Committee are referred to the Cabinet report at Appendix A.

A presentation will be given to update the committee on the Oracle Improvement Programme business case, slides attached at Appendix B.

For the reasons set out in the report Audit & Governance Committee is recommended to:

Receive the presentation and update.

Alan Layton, Interim Head of Finance gave a presentation updating the Committee on the Oracle Improvement Programme Business Case as available within the agenda report pack at Appendix B.

In response to questions from the Committee, Officers advised an experienced Change Manager had been appointed and was conducting change impact assessments on all affected business processes and overseeing the strategy. Culture change and compliance would be supported via training and holding officers to account for non-compliance. The programme management was in house and supported by the Croydon Digital Service Team (CDS).

The Committee commented on the scale of the work to be undertaken and asked how the adoption of the systems was being understood by staff, what training and support was available and if the council had engaged with other local authorities to understand their practices. It was advised an external critical friend with experience of Oracle Implementation at other London Boroughs had supported the programme team and the council had engaged with other councils including through Lancashire County council’s workshop on Oracle guided learning. Lessons learned discussions with other local authorities had helped inform decisions around whether to adopt certain modules within Oracle. Engagement workshops with staff had been undertaken to identify issues at the beginning of the project and continued within each workstream. The improvements proposed had been well received by stakeholders and following the Cabinet approval in March, prioritisation of next steps was underway.

Councillor Jason Cummings, Cabinet Member for Finance commented on the data efficiencies Oracle could provide and the benefits of using an industry standard system for staff. The issues at Birmingham City Council due to its non-standard implementation of Oracle were noted.

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Members noted their support for the ‘Adopt not adapt’ approach. It was queried how data migration risks would be mitigated and how current control systems would be ensured within Oracle. Officers advised Oracle was already in use as the primary data source for the council’s finances, where data was currently exported for activities, such as forecasting and reconciliations, these activities would now happen within Oracle. Testing resource had been included in the programme to ensure controls were correctly applied and the enhancements included additional audit and control functionality.

In response to questions its was advised the Finance and Procurement elements were working to an 18-month implementation with HR expected in 2 years. Modules would be added incrementally. Teams would be able to provide a demo workshop of the improvements to the Committee in Autumn 2024. Officers noted the finance improvements were part of the IAP Exit Strategy and the Committee would receive further updates via the Revenue and Capital Monitoring Improvements Reports.   

The Committee commended the business case work and noted the importance of user benefits. The need for current performance data to provide for benchmarking in reporting following implementation was highlighted. Officers advised the improvements in Procurement were closely aligned to the Procurement and Contract Management Improvement Plan which had included national benchmarking.   

In response to questions, Officers advised Oracle had undertaken an assessment of Croydon’s usage of Oracle in Summer 2023. The programme team were meeting with Mastek to agree the sequencing and programming of the (module) builds and testing. The steering group would support the programme team to ensure staff were using new processes correctly and hold staff accountable.

The Committee RESOLVED, to;

Receive the presentation and update.