FINANCE

Council incurs £3.7m overspend on IT system

Vale of Glamorgan Council took more than a year longer than planned to install a new IT system, leading to a £3.7m overspend.

Vale of Glamorgan Council took more than a year longer than planned to install a new IT system, leading to a £3.7m overspend.

In 2020, a business case outlined a £1.5m cost for the Welsh authority to replace its Oracle EBS system with cloud-based Oracle Fusion, which would manage its financial ledger, procurement, HR and payroll.

The system was scheduled to go live in January 2022 but was not in place until April 2023 – at a final cost of £5.2m.

A report to the council's corporate performance scrutiny committee laid out a series of delays, which included replacing the project manager and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The council was forced to backfill its finance and HR teams, which it said came at a high cost because specialist staff were in short supply.

FINANCE

LGR: Key considerations for monitoring officers

By Tiffany Cloynes | 01 May 2025

Tiffany Cloynes, Rebecca Gilbert and Megan Tam look at how local authorities and monitoring officers can prepare for reorganisation. Due diligence and effect...

FINANCE

The race to embrace transformation

By Martin Ford | 30 April 2025

Amid turbulent times for council finances, the new president of the Society of County Treasurers, Rob Powell, spoke to Martin Ford about his priorities for t...

FINANCE

Reassembling the dragon

By Rob Thomas | 23 April 2025

Rob Thomas tracks policy debate on council reorganisation in Wales since 1996, and says the early work of a new independent group to explore how essential se...

FINANCE

Stepping up to the housing challenge

By Martin Ford | 15 April 2025

With the Government intent on ramping up housebuilding figures, the delivery of accompanying infrastructure and affordable housing has never been more import...

Popular articles by Ellie Ames