"For the uninitiated, highlights include going live with a system unfit to manage the council's £3 billion in taxpayer revenue and multibillion-pound spending budget; a decision to turn off audits for fraud detection for more than 18 months; allocating £2 billion in transactions to the wrong year; and multiple delays and overspending. Pertaining to the last item on this list of shame, Birmingham City Council has released new figures."
"In a written response published with its council meeting this week, officials said the total forecast cost of the program up to the 2027/28 financial year is £144.4 million, up from an initial estimate of £19 million with a £1 million contingency. In 2024, the total budget approved across financial years 2018/19 to 2025/26 was £131 million. The project began in 2018, when the council planned to move away from its legacy R/3 SAP system to more modern software."
"Having hit the project milestone, things went from bad to worse. Although the council had planned to implement Oracle "out-of-the-box," it created several customizations including a banking reconciliation system that failed to function properly. The council struggled to understand its cash position and was unable to produce auditable accounts. It has spent more than £5 million on manual workaround labor."
Birmingham City Council's ERP replacement program will cost £144.4 million by 2027/28, rising from an initial £19 million estimate and exceeding a 2024 approved total of £131 million. The program began in 2018 with Oracle Fusion chosen and planned go-live dates in late 2020 and early 2021, later revised to April 2022. The implementation included customizations, notably a banking reconciliation system that failed, which left the council unable to determine cash position or produce auditable accounts. The program caused disabled fraud audits, misallocated transactions, repeated delays, overspending, and over £5 million in manual workaround costs.
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