Hampshire County Council

Buildings, Land and Procurement Panel Item 13

25 May 2004

Replacement of Property Services Legacy Systems

Report by the Director of Property, Business and Regulatory Services

How the conclusion in this report fits with the Corporate Strategy

This proposal will impact on the delivery of the following Corporate Aims

Aim 5 - improving services - by integrating financial management systems and procurement processes.

1

Summary

1.1

It was agreed at the last meeting of the Panel to bring forward a further report, following research and design, on the plan to replace the core financial legacy system (CAC) used in Property Services to manage annual budgets of over £40 million.

1.2

This report details progress with the replacement plan and sets out a proposal to move ahead with a project to replace the existing system with SAP.

2

Background

2.1

CAC is used to procure work, pay creditors and manage annual budgets of over £40m, and is therefore an integral management tool in order to plan, budget and manage the financial resources relating to the management of the built estate. It also reflects the specialised procurement practices within the UK construction industry.

2.2

Due to the decommissioning of the County Council's mainframe computer the CAC system must be replaced by March 2005. The previous report detailed the primary reasons for selecting SAP as the best solution for the replacement of CAC, the main reason being the ability to integrate with existing financial management systems that have already been developed using SAP.

3

Project Management and Costs

3.1

The CAC replacement project will be managed jointly between Property, Business and Regulatory Services and the Enterprise team within IT Services, with a core project team having now been established. The team comprises a mix of internal resources and external consultancy (Axon). The project team will further be supported by a selected group of user representatives, with rollout training being resourced internally via the County Treasurers Training Team.

3.2

The proposed program is on schedule with work commencing later this month to develop the Project Blueprint. This will define the exact solution, gaps and contingencies, costs and timeline, with the go live planned for January 2005. The project plan is detailed in the appendix.

3.3

The total cost is still estimated at up to £600,000 and this will be further refined as part of the Project Blueprint. The attached appendix, details the cost breakdown. Financial provision has been earmarked from within the contingencies held against the Capital Repairs Programme for 2004/05.

4

Usability

4.1

One of the key success factors for the project will be the usability of the system. This is because the system's main user base will not be using SAP intensely throughout the working week.

4.2

Work is currently being untaken to look at the available options to make standard SAP more user friendly. Initial investigations are looking positive and the work on this project may well provide the catalyst for improvements in corporate use of SAP.

5

SAP Upgrade

5.1

At this point it is worth identifying that the CAC solution will be partially dependent on additional SAP functionality in the new SAP release scheduled to be implemented within the County Council this August.

5.2

Should there be any delay with the implementation of the upgrade, contingences identified within the Blueprint would need to be utilised within the project.

6

Benefits (integration)

6.1

The benefits of using SAP for the replacement of CAC was identified in the previous report in March.

6.2

One anticipated benefit was the integration of procurement processes. Further investigations have shown that SAP will enable this integration within Property Services, resulting in e-procurement for major capital work where it is currently in paper form.

Recommendation(s)

That the Panel advises the Executive Member for Policy and Resources that approval be given to:

1. The proposal to replace the CAC system with SAP at an estimated cost of £600,000 to be funded from the Capital Repairs budget.