Agenda item
Project Athena
Report to follow.
Minutes:
Denis Turner (Project Manager, One Council Programme) introduced the report and explained that the current payroll system was based on Logica which was coming to the end of being supported, whilst support for the Oracle Release (R)11 Finance and Procurement modules were similarly due to end this year. Project Athena offered both payroll services and Oracle R12 and the plan was that these services be provided through a partnership with five other London boroughs – Havering, Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Barking and Dagenham - on a shared single platform. Working with these partners, a rigorous approach to procurement had been undertaken to ensure the appropriate technical specification was set out to potential bidders. Denis Turner drew the committee’s attention to the IT specification as set out in the report and advised that all partners had agreed to keep as closely to the specification as possible in order to keep costs down.
Turning to the project’s progress, Denis Turner advised that the solutions validation stage was near to completion and user acceptance testing would soon commence and this would be followed by payroll parallel tests. The aim was for the system to go live on 1 August 2013, although he cautioned that there may be some difficulties in achieving this. Once implemented, the new system would mean significant changes for managers in that they would be taking more day to day responsibilities for controlling expenditure and also HR matters, such as staff absences and sickness. Denis Turner felt that it was important to embed the systems initially before looking at ways to best harness the benefits it can bring.
During discussion by Members, it was queried whether there was any risk of data manipulation and did Oracle R12 offer more functionality. It was enquired whether it was possible for staff to enter data erroneously. A member concurred that it was important to ensure the system was working properly before fully exploiting its benefits. The committee sought further details with regard to training for managers including what numbers were involved and whether this would take place before Project Athena was rolled out. A member asked if there were any savings objectives involved in the project and if so would there be any initial savings and why had details of savings not been outlined in the report. It was also queried if there were any concerns that such savings could be achieved. Details of implementation and service costs were sought and how long would it take for the savings to recover these costs. The committee asked whether savings, including cost comparisons with the current system could be provided. It was commented that it would be beneficial to identify what services could be shared in order to save costs and to see evidence of how the project was progressing. Members also asked how the project was linked with other projects and would the project’s implementation result in further staff restructuring.
In reply, Denis Turner advised that there was no risk of data manipulation as each partner borough had a separate database and there had been discussions with security advisers to ensure the system was secure. Oracle R12 offered more functionality and was already in use at two of the partner boroughs, including the host borough, Havering, who were looking at more creative ways of using it. R12 was quite simple to use and similar to R11 and Cap Gemini were running training sessions that would be cascaded to other staff. It had been identified that around 350 to 400 staff would require training, ranging from core users to less frequent users. It was intended to supplement training with online training support resources, such as video captures, and also in other ways such as drop-ins and floor walks. Core users would be trained before Project Athena was fully implemented. Denis Turner explained that the system would pick up data errors and that it was difficult to accidently input the wrong data. He felt that the benefits of the system would become apparent. He also stressed that it was important that there was sufficient training and support from staff to ensure the system to operate properly initially, before seeing what other changes the project could enable.
Peter Stachniewski advised that there was not a specific savings target for the project yet, however it would deliver savings in the longer term. The original business case for the project had indicated that an organisation of Brent’s size would typically deliver savings of around £1m per annum but the specific areas the savings would be made from could not be identified until after the project’s implementation. Peter Stachniewski advised that Cap Gemini implementation costs were around £1.2m and their on-going annual charges were in the region of £300k. He said that these costs had to be incurred to replace the existing Logica payroll and Oracle R11 systems because the existing systems were no longer supported. Peter Stachniewski explained that the broad overall costs of the new system compared to the existing system could be provided, but this would not cover savings details.
Members noted that data storage could easily be expanded and in addition there would be an up to date back-up file. Members also noted that the contract with Cap Gemini was for four years.
The Chair requested that details of the costs of the new system be provided and also for information to be obtained from the five other London borough partners on the savings assumptions they had made.
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