Largest local government body in Europe goes under amid Oracle disaster

Birmingham City Council, nan largest section authority successful Europe, has declared itself successful financial distress aft troubled Oracle task costs ballooned from £20 cardinal to astir £100 cardinal ($125.5 million).

Contributing to nan publication of a ineligible Section 114 Notice, which says nan £3.4 cardinal ($4.3 billion) gross statement is incapable to equilibrium nan books, is simply a measure of up to £760 cardinal ($954 million) to settee adjacent salary claims.

In a statement today, councillors John Cotton and Sharon Thompson, leader and lawman leader respectively, said nan authority was besides deed by financial accent owing to issues pinch nan implementation of its Oracle IT system.

The assembly has made a petition to nan Local Government Association for further strategical support, nan connection said.

In May, Birmingham City Council said it was group to salary up to £100 cardinal for its Oracle ERP strategy – perchance a fourfold summation connected first estimated expenses – successful a task suffering from delays, costs over-runs, and a deficiency of controls.

• Europe's largest metropolis assembly runs parallel systems to screen Oracle rollout mess
• Europe's biggest metropolis assembly faces £100M measure successful Oracle ERP task disaster
• Oracle's examplar triumph complete SAP for Birmingham City Council is 3 years late
• Another SAP successful nan look for Oracle: Alphabet soups up financial package by moving disconnected Big Red systems

After grappling pinch nan task to switch SAP for halfway HR and finance functions since 2018, nan assembly reviewed nan scheme successful 2019, 2020, and again successful 2021, erstwhile nan full implementation costs for nan task almost doubled to £38.7 cardinal ($48.5 million).

The project, dubbed Financial and People, was "crucial to an organisation of Birmingham City Council's size," a spokesperson said astatine nan time.

Cotton said nan strategy had a problem pinch really it was "tracking our financial transactions and HR transactions issues arsenic well. That's sewage to beryllium fixed," he said.

Earlier this year, 1 insider told The Register that Oracle Fusion, nan cloud-based ERP strategy nan assembly is moving to, "is not a merchandise that is suitable for section authorities, because it's very overmuch geared towards a manufacturing/trading organization."

They said nan erstwhile SAP strategy had been heavy customized to meet nan council's needs and it was struggling to recreate these functions successful Oracle.

In 2021, Oracle laminitis and CTO Larry Ellison said Birmingham City Council was 1 of a number of successful wins to migrate ample SAP ERP customers to Oracle Fusion.

We person asked Oracle to comment. ®