Agenda item

Report of the Chief Operating Officer to set out the lessons that had been learnt from the implementation of the  new Vendor Invoice Management system.

The Committee considered the report on the lessons that had been learnt from the implementation of the Council’s new Vendor Invoice Management system, introduced by Neville Murton, Lead Finance Officer. The report set out the background to the procurement and implementation of the new system, the areas where issues had arisen and the action plan that had been put in place to address this. It was noted that the majority of the issues that had occurred related to the implementation of the system rather than the product itself.

The Committee asked about the lessons learnt in respect of training, and the reasons for issues encountered in ensuring that appropriate training was undertaken by all staff concerned. Mr Murton advised that there were a number of factors affecting the take-up of training and that there had in particular been a general underestimation of the degree of training required. It was accepted that more needed to be done to ensure that people attended necessary training in future, however there was also an issue in ensuring that people fully engaged with the training once they were in attendance and that this was a more complex issue to address.

The Committee noted that a lack of change management and analysis of the workflow in this area appeared to have contributed to the issues that had arisen, and that engagement with the supplier in relation to the Council’s requirements around workflow did not seem to have been effective. The Committee hoped that actions undertaken to address the lessons learnt would mean that similar issues were not repeated. The Chief Operating Officer confirmed that this was the intention behind the review, and that the lessons learnt from this would be applied to the introduction of any new systems in future. The Committee welcomed the honesty of the report in acknowledging what had gone wrong, and encouraged this transparency of approach.

The Committee asked whether the Council had been aware at the time that this product had not previously been implemented in a local authority setting and if so, whether this had been reflected in the cost of the system; Mr Murton advised that a cost reduction had been negotiated as part of the procurement process, but he was not aware of whether this had been related to the system being in effect a trial in relation to local authority settings. Mr Murton advised that the introduction of a new form of procurement process at the time may also have contributed to the issues encountered.

The Committee asked whether a comparative analysis had been undertaken of the costs associated with the implementation problems, as opposed to the costs that would have been incurred by not going live on the agreed date. Mr Murton advised that he was not aware of whether this comparison had been undertaken, however it was noted that there had been additional pressures in relation to meeting the agreed ‘go-live’ date as this had been a joint procurement exercise with the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The Committee asked about the reasons for the large number of outstanding paper invoices loaded onto the system as set out in paragraph 6.14 of the report. The Chief Operating Officer confirmed that this reflected poor invoice management systems in place at the time and that work had been undertaken to address this.

RESOLVED

That the content of the report be noted.