Midlands Local Authority Cutting Costs with Oracle E-Business Suite

A Midlands-based Local Authority has successfully consolidated a number of financial systems and integrated a number of financial and purchasing processes utilising the Oracle E-Business Suite.

The organisation is a unitary council providing education, social services, highways and transportation, arts and cultural events, refuse collection and recycling, and parks for all its citizens.  In addition, the council had created an arms length management company to maintain and improve its council houses and estates.

Fully Integrated
It was the council’s vision to consolidate the various disparate finance systems with an integrated solution to capture a true view of the council and the DCC and DH.  In order to gain this, the council had awarded Patech to implement an Oracle E-Business Suite solution which provided a fully integrated system enabling real-time monthly performance management.  The solution has successfully implemented Financials and Self Service Procurement for 850 users and 2,000 requistioners.

Benefits Led Project
From the onset, the council had insisted the new system should not merely be based on the latest technology available but more on real tangible benefits available to both organisations.  With a strong presence in the local government arena, Patech successfully demonstrated a benefits-led approach to the project including providing a platform for shared services.

Multi-Org Environment / Shared Transactions
The local authority required separate systems for the two organisations to allow much greater clarity on their back-office activities.  The Oracle E-Business Suite has provided Multi-Organisation (multi-org) functionality allowing the council to operate multiple business systems under one enterprise model.  Thus enabling both organisations to operate independently but benefits from the shared transaction services for both organisations.

Improved Reporting
The implementation has enabled improved monitoring of their financial performance across the authority through the use of Oracle’s Business Intelligence tools and has allowed the council to gain a greater insight of its organisation with more timely reporting. 

Accelerated Implementation
By adopting the Patech Local Government Best Practice Functional Template, Patech successfully delivered a fully functional, fully supported Finance, Procurement and Output Document solution in less than 9 month.  This has been achieved due to senior sponsorship and the full participation of motivated council staff and the experienced Patech project team.

Integration to UK Public Sector Marketplace
The Patech implemented solution has enabled the council to integrate its procurement system with IDeA.  The IDeA marketplace is built around unique procurement technology designed specifically for public sector buyers is the first e-Procurement platform to include an Extensible Markup Language (XML) based supplier network technology.  DCC can now successfully provide electronic purchase orders and invoices transmitted by XML.

Schools on-line
The solution has enabled 80 school finance officers to access the system that are not based at the council i.e. all the schools within the catchment area.  As the Oracle E-Business Suite is a fully web-enabled solution, Patech had set up all affiliated schools to view finance reports via the internet this saving time and cost for issuing reports to schools.

Invoice Scanning Solution
As part of the finance and procurement implementation an Invoice Scanning solution to complement the Oracle E-Business Suite solution.  Based on Version One’s output document management solution, Patech has implemented a suite of modules to enable the council to produce AR invoices, Dunning Letters, Statements, Remittances, and PO Print.  All these documents can now be successfully emailed and printed depending on the required output.

Key Benefits

• A financial system that is operational and supported  as legacy system was reaching its capacity

Projected Benefits

• Removal of supplementary systems by having one version of the truth
• Integrated approach to the ordering of goods and services
• Streamlining of processes and hopefully associated efficiencies