Recommendations approved.

Reasons for recommendations

1. To ensure compliance with the Council’s Contract Procedure Rules, by reviewing and refreshing the existing contract to ensure it is fit for purpose and protects the council from above inflationary increases until the current review of the finance system is completed and a tender exercise is undertaken.
2. Review and replacement of the system; as the on-premise Civica Financials system has been in place since 2003 at Chorley Council, with the addition of South Ribble Council in 2011, the Shared Services Finance Team is currently reviewing the market to look at the options for replacement of the system, considering the advancements in technology, system functionality and the changes in operational and reporting requirements of the respective councils over this period. Soft market testing is being undertaken on various Cloud hosted provider solutions, and also exploration of a public to public partnership, working with another public sector organisation to access and utilise an existing system, similar to the current arrangements we have in place with Blackpool Council for payroll.

3.    Review, procurement and implementation of any of the above options will take up to 2 years to complete and so the new contract will provide clarity around the requirements of both parties over this period of time whilst this exercise is completed.

Other options considered and rejected

1. To continue with the existing contract – this option was rejected in order to provide a clear focus for the longer-term objectives of procuring the best Financial System across the 2 Councils. It should also be noted that the 2-year quote negotiated offers discounts for consultancy days which will be used in readiness for the migration of the financial data to any new platform.

2.    To go out to tender to procure a new financial system, and implementation thereof – this would be a very significant and resource intensive project; estimated timescales for this would be approximately 12 to 24 months, and as such a project of this scale cannot be undertaken in the timeframe available.