On 24 June 2025 Cabinet:-
(i) Approved the completion of the Design Phase of re-implementation, noting that the proposed design has been assessed as meeting the Council’s business requirements without recourse to significant customisations;
(ii) Authorised the completion of the re-implementation of the Oracle solution using the approved Design with a target date of April 2026;
(iii) Approved the funding for the Programme to complete Oracle re-implementation including the new Income Management System within the total funding envelope already agreed (2024/5 - £25m, 2025/26 - £20m), including:
- Approving the carry forward of underspend in 2024/5 (Estimate £6.6m) into 2025/26 to reflect the timing differences of moving activity from 2024/25 to 2025/26 with no change to the total expenditure. (Appendix C, to the report, refers)
- Approving the rephasing of £3m of the 2025/26 budget into 2026/27 to fund the ‘hypercare’ – additional post go live support – provided in the first 3 to 6 months after go-live in April 2026, with no change to the total expenditure. (Appendix C, to the report, refers)
(iv) Delegated authority to approve the additional, compliant procurement arrangements required to secure resources and partners to support the Oracle re-implementation Programme and its ongoing support (Section 8.4 Procurement, to the report refers, setting out the specific delegations being sought);
(v) Within this authority and the overall approved spend (2024/5 - £25m, 2025/26 - £20m), reconfirm agreement to utilise the Phase 2 funding included in the Oracle Consulting contract for resources where required to support the reimplementation. This does not change the total planned expenditure and relates to a specific commitment made by the Programme on contract initiation to give Cabinet the ability to endorse the remainder of the contract spend;
(vi) Approved the procurement strategy to initiate a procurement for the services of a supplier to be the Delivery Partner to take on the maintenance and support of the Oracle solution as the re-implementation under the Programme completes and the solution goes live (Section 8.4, Procurement and Appendix H, to the report, refers);
(vii) Noted the licence costs for Year 3 of the contract supporting the Oracle re-implementation environment, which are already included in the budget. This equates to a total spend of £1,882,855 out of a total 3 year contract for the provision of Oracle SaaS licences (core modules), PaaS/IaaS Universal Credits (platform credits) and OGL licences (guided learning module) for the Reimplementation Contract to Oracle Corporation UK Limited commencing 9th October 2024 for the total amount of £4,013,084.13. This is within the existing budget and does not increase the planned total expenditure.
SaaS licences - £1,475,329
OGL licences - £147,526
PaaS Credits - £200,000
Total - £1,822,855;
(viii) Endorsed the mitigations to the existing Oracle environment whilst reimplementation is taking place (Appendix A7, to the report, refers);
(ix) Noted the continued application of lessons learned from the original implementation (Appendix A8, to the report, refers);
(x) Noted the governance and structure proposed to manage the ongoing Programme (Appendix A9, to the report, refers);
(xi) Endorsed the Business Change arrangements recommended to support the re-implementation (Appendix A10, to the report, refers)
(xii) Noted the next key activities for the Programme, including the points when the Programme will return to inform Cabinet about progress (Section 4.2, to the report, refers). The next update to Cabinet is scheduled for December 2025.
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