A UK public authority responsible for about £1.1 billion ($1.43 billion) in annual spending damaged its ERP project - which saw SAP ditched in favor of Unit4 - by underestimating its complexity and kicking off with an "unrealistic timeline of 15 months," according to a public report.

Surrey County Council busted its original budget for the project by 68 percent and saw the software go live 18 months late.

"Delays to the program have had negative impacts on staff, partners and on the council's reputation, and there have been a significant number of problems to resolve after project implementation, particularly in payroll," a report from the council’s Digital Business and Insight Task Group says.

The Register first reported in January 2020 that the Surrey County Council was procuring a new ERP system, originally advertised at £40 million ($51.91 million) - a figure published in error, it turned out, when the supplier contract was later corrected to £30 million. It planned to replace an ageing SAP system running on in-house servers, which was in danger of falling over and also going out of support.

Since then, El Reg has recorded a number of delays and overspending on the project, and, after it finally went live in June 2023, performance issues included some affecting teachers' pay.

The Task Group report, which will be discussed in Council Cabinet meeting next week, found the cumulative cost of the project was £27.9 million ($36.2 million) against an initial budget of £16.6 million ($21.56 million), a 68.1 percent increase.

"While the… project was challenging and resulted in an overspend, it has not been as damaging as those of some other authorities and has culminated in the delivery of a functioning ERP system. Though acknowledging this, Surrey County Council must still maintain an explicit commitment to the careful safeguarding of public money and take steps to prevent future instances of overspend as occurred on this project," the report states.

The Group found that the project ran late because the "overall complexity of the programme was underestimated, and an unrealistic timeline of 15 months, set at the beginning of the project, proved damaging."

It says that a lack of business readiness across certain council functions "made delivery of the new ERP system in 'vanilla,' unmodified form difficult, creating greater problems in Payroll, HR and schools as the project developed."

The report adds: "The absence of this readiness was demonstrated in the poor understandings of the 'as is' processes that were already in place, data processes and quality, and the business requirements of different council services and teams."

While the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the challenges, especially in engaging users, the program suffered because it was "driven too greatly from a 'technology perspective' rather than one centered on business transformation," it says.

This meant there was not enough focus and "ownership" by leadership of the significant behavioral change required to adapt to the new ways of working imposed by the new ERP system, the report adds.

The authors of the review also found the fixed-price nature of the contract proved "problematic." The report says the model "arguably drove commercial considerations which fueled an overoptimistic approach and disincentivised early and effective replanning to take account of complexities as they arose."

While the impact of the delays to the project was felt across the council, nowhere were they more apparent than in schools. In January, The Register reported that after the system went live the council was forced to prioritize support calls for problems that delayed staff pay.

According to a note sent by Surrey County Council's service desk - seen by The Register - some issues "had an impact on pay" leaving "someone either receiving nil pay, a significant underpayment or... in serious financial hardship."

In its report, Digital Business and Insight Task Group found that schools' specific requirements were not adequately recognized and that schools were hesitant about the self-service model after 15 years using SAP.

The council ERP project also seemed to fail to recognize how schools work. For example, it did not seem to account for school holidays or exam time.

"The impact of this can be seen in the June 2023 payroll run for instance as, when issues were detected, there were no staff present in schools to co-ordinate a response with the Programme Board and helpdesk support, meaning that the feedback of issues, their investigation and search for a solution may have been more delayed," the report concludes.®

https://www.theregister.com//2024/07/16/18_months_late_and_68pc/