Birmingham City Council effectively declares bankrupcy

[CHiLL]

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-66715441

 

Existing authorised payments and contracts will be honoured, but it looks like we'll not be able to purchase anything unless it's basically essential or safeguarding, etc. Interesting times for us LEA schools and other council services.

Edited September 5, 2023 by CHiLL

[localzuk]

Schools are a statutory service, so as far as I'm aware? So, they shouldn't be affected?

[FN-GM]

In their statement, councillors John Cotton and Sharon Thompson, leader and deputy leader respectively, said the authority was also facing financial pressures due to issues with the implementation of its Oracle IT system.

 

 

Somehow every bad situation seems to be the fault of the IT department!

[dmj]

Schools are a statutory service, so as far as I'm aware? So, they shouldn't be affected?

 

Most of what councils do are statutory services!

Somehow every bad situation seems to be the fault of the IT department!

 

lol, was it the new over budget HR system that identified they were illegally paying their workers under equal pay legislation :0

[Brimstone]

Somehow every bad situation seems to be the fault of the IT department!

 

Oracle explained that some of the councils IT procedures needed to change in order for a smooth transition, this was ignored and now costing 100M to fix.

[maark]

Every local authority must have similar needs for IT - HR, data access, safeguarding etc.

If the government procured a system that could be used by all authorities it would save a fortune.

However this seems impossible same as police, NHS etc.

No one seems to have the foresight, ability or power to do this.

[Davit2005]

Oracle explained that some of the councils IT procedures needed to change in order for a smooth transition, this was ignored and now costing 100M to fix.

 

So 100M to fix on top of the other 600M+ they still owe due to issues found 10+ years back.

 

Feel for anyone impacted by this as there no doubt will be.

[Davit2005]

Every local authority must have similar needs for IT - HR, data access, safeguarding etc.

If the government procured a system that could be used by all authorities it would save a fortune.

However this seems impossible same as police, NHS etc.

No one seems to have the foresight, ability or power to do this.

 

Add the HMRC and Congestion charge to that list at least.

[FN-GM]

Oracle explained that some of the councils IT procedures needed to change in order for a smooth transition, this was ignored and now costing 100M to fix.

 

I have been in this situation myself, albeit to a much smaller scale. It's frustrating!

[Davit2005]

I have been in this situation myself, albeit to a much smaller scale. It's frustrating!

 

IT support teams and departments probably the last to know if they ever even found out or were invited to the meetings, lol. How often this happens in Schools, lol

[DrCheese]

Yeah not a shock - IT will no doubt have been told the system needs to do X after it was purchased, without involving them first.

Will also no doubt have some upper management who "We've always done it this way" or "I want it done this way" kicking off.

 

Not involving IT and pretending blockers don't exist doesn't make them go away.

 

Have seen this in some schools (Not mine thankfully!!) - The projects inevitably go wrong & IT gets blamed anyway.

Edited September 6, 2023 by DrCheese