The Chair thanked the Working Group which had undertaken a review of this project and full business case.

Shaer Halewood, Director of Resources, then introduced the report on the SmartBusiness Project regarding the upgrade of the council’s Enterprise Resources Planning Systems. The Enterprise Resource Planning?(ERP) systems integrated key business processes across finance, human resources, procurement and other areas. The approach standardised and streamlined procedures and approaches to the administration of a number of key business activities. The Council’s current ERP system, Oracle - 1 Business had been in operation since April 2005 and was now obsolete.

The report and supporting Full Business Case (FBC) (attached as an exempt appendix to the report) discussed the future of the system and the requirement to implement an alternative to the current ERP that was now over 15 years old. It was envisaged that by replacing the current systems the Council would take full advantage of recent developments to make a step change to its operational effectiveness. 

To date, the SmartBusiness Project had gone through extensive Discovery and Design phases which had resulted in a successful tender and evaluation process.

Councillors Jeff Green, Chris Carubia and Paul Stuart, the members of the Working Group, which had looked in detail at the comprehensive business case, all expressed their support for the project.

On a motion by Councillor Paul Stuart, seconded by Councillor Jeff Green, it was -

Resolved (unanimously) – That this Committee:

(1)  approves the implementation and upgrade from the current unsupported version of Oracle (Release 11) to a new cloud solution;

(2)  approves the budget and allocation of funding of £4.6 million (£2m capital / £2.6m revenue) for transformation projects that deliver ongoing savings;

(3)  approves the award of a five-year contract with the option to extend for another two years to the company named in the Full Business Case (FBC) via the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) Data and Application Solutions Framework, Agreement (RM3821) for:

·  New cloud platform licenses for a 5-year (with the option to extend for a further 2: 5+2 years) period

·  Implementation partner to implement the new platform for a total value detailed in the FBC.

(4)  re-appoints the existing Members of the Working Group, Councillors Chris Carubia, Jeff Green and Paul Stuart, to monitor project performance during Delivery phase.