Europe's largest city council delays fix to disastrous Oracle system once more

Europe's largest local authority has delayed the introduction of a vital income management system (IMS) amid confirmation that total spending on a disastrous Oracle implementation could hit £170 million (c $230 million).

Elected representatives of Birmingham City Council's audit committee vented their frustration this week after hearing that the rollout of the IMS – designed to replace the council's banking reconciliation system (BRS), which went so badly wrong after the April 2022 go-live of Oracle Fusion – is to be postponed again.

The council's financial management has been unable to file auditable accounts since it replaced an aging – but functioning – SAP system with new cloud-based software from Oracle. Although the council had expected to implement the system out-of-the-box, it made customized modifications including the introduction of the BRS, which failed to function as planned. The council was declared effectively bankrupt in September 2023, because of the ERP disaster ...