Agenda item

a)  Approve the direct award of a contract to Unit 4 for a period of five years at an approximate cost of £2m.  The total contract value may vary due to the number of concurrent users as the pricing model is a per user subscription business model;

b)  Delegate authority to negotiate and approve the contract award to the Executive Director of Finance & Commercial, in consultation with the Lead Member for I.T., Customer Services, Revenue & Benefits, Procurement and Performance;

c)  Note the increase 2024/25 budget allocation for the revenue costs of the application of £47,000, which will be funded from the contingency, and the increase costs to Slough Children First and the Housing Revenue Account.

d)  Note that a growth bid of approximately £0.225m will be submitted as part of the MTFS cycle for members’ consideration; to be reduced in future years as dual running of platforms ends. This will be partially offset by an increased recharge to the Housing Revenue Account of £0.035m.

e)  Note a delivery of a project intended to develop improvements in the application’s customisation that support better use; and, a comprehensive training programme will need to be established to rebuild staff confidence and experience in using the application. Funding in the region of £258,000.  It is expected that this project will be funded from the transformation reserve and will form part of the finance improvement plan.

Lead Member for I.T., Customer Services, Revenue & Benefits, Procurement and Performance introduced a report that sought approval to enter a new contract with Unit 4 for Agresso, the Council’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) tool which was critical to the functioning of HR, payroll and finance.

The background was summarised and it was noted that in November 2023, Unit 4, the supplier of the Agresso application, changed its business model and would require all users to contract with them directly and migrate to their cloud platform.  This was an issued faced by many local authorities that used the system.  The implication of this was that the Council would need to enter into a new contract by December 2024 and migrate to the new hosting platform soon after.  This would result in additional revenue costs to the Council, however, there was insufficient time available to undertake a new competitive procurement exercise for the software and a waiver of the usual procurement rules was therefore required.  The legal advice was contained in the Part II appendix which was considered during Part I without disclosing any of the exempt information.  The proposal was to enter into a new contract for a five-year period at an approximate cost of £2m.

It was recognised that the application was currently been under-utilised and in parallel with the procurement process it was proposed to deliver an improvement programme to seek to address long standing issues such as incorrect workflows and poor user adoption.  Additional funding was being sought to support this improvement work.

Members expressed dissatisfaction that the decision of the supplier would result in additional costs to the Council.  However, in reviewing the available options the Cabinet recognised that it was not feasible to carry out a full procurement exercise or move to an alternative application in the time available.  The Agresso programme was considered to be able to meet the Council’s needs but the implementation of the improvement programme was crucial to optimise the system.  The recommendations were approved.

Resolved –

(a)  That the direct award of a contract to Unit 4 for a period of five years at an approximate cost of £2m be approved.  The total contract value may vary due to the number of concurrent users as the pricing model is a per user subscription business model;

(b)  That delegated authority be given to negotiate and approve the contract award to the Executive Director of Finance & Commercial, in consultation with the Lead Member for I.T., Customer Services, Revenue & Benefits, Procurement and Performance;

(c)  That the increase 2024/25 budget allocation for the revenue costs of the application of £47,000, which would be funded from the contingency, and the increased costs to Slough Children First and the Housing Revenue Account be noted.

(d)  That it be noted that a growth bid of approximately £0.225m would be submitted as part of the MTFS cycle for members’ consideration; to be reduced in future years as dual running of platforms ended. This would be partially offset by an increased recharge to the Housing Revenue Account of £0.035m.

(e)  That delivery of a project intended to develop improvements in the application’s customisation that support better use be noted; and, a comprehensive training programme would need to be established to rebuild staff confidence and experience in using the application. Funding in the region of £258,000.  It was expected that this project would be funded from the transformation reserve and would form part of the finance improvement plan.