Agenda item

(To receive an update on the Agresso Project)

The Committee received a verbal update from the Chief Information and Commissioning Officer in relation to the most up to date situation with the Agresso system.

It was reported that some signs of progress could be seen.  Shortly after the last meeting of the Audit Committee, where senior officers from Serco were present, Serco took the decision to change some of the staff at the Lincoln office.  Not everything which was outstanding had been achieved, but it was acknowledged that the changes had only taken place a short time ago, but there had been some progress.  The backlog of queries in relation to payroll was being reduced, and it was hoped that it would be cleared by the end of the calendar year.

There had been signs that October's payroll had been better than September's and fewer new issues had been reported.  It was expected to see further improvement in the coming months.

Most of the areas of concern had been related to payroll.  Where deductions had been taken from staff, this had been paid to HMRC, however, the information on who had paid what had not yet been transferred across.  Serco were putting a lot of energy into fixing the problems.  There was still some way to go to fix the issues for council staff, but the issues relating to schools were almost clear.

The system issues were making reasonable progress, but a firm date for when all issues would be resolved by had not been provided.  An updated version of the Agresso system needed to be implemented, but officers wanted to wait until the system was more stable before installing it.

The budget monitoring report was 90-95% correct, but the biggest risk from the finance point of view was that the year end was not far away, and it was a statutory deadline.  There was a high risk of the accounts not being produced on time. 

Members were provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the update provided, and some of the points raised during discussion include the following:

·         Concerns were raised regarding people who had to enter claims for tax credits as they would not be able to provide evidence of their earnings. 

·         It was very important that the Committee understood that the Chief Executive and Corporate Management Board were spending time working with senior Serco officers, and have been considering what the right options were to resolve the issues that had been experienced;

·         There had been reasonable performance since the new staff took over;

·         It was noted that 100 other authorities were using Agresso, so it was queried why so many issues were being experienced;

·         It was noted that a lessons learned report would not be produced until all problems had been resolved;

·         The implementation was a significant part of the problem, and some of the staff that transferred to Serco had not had as much training as required;

·         There were some systems issues, but it was not the system itself;

·         Members were still awaiting a figure on how much it had cost the authority to resolve the issues.  It was noted that some costs were being recharged on a monthly basis.  There was a need for further conversations about what other costs were rechargeable;

·         It was confirmed that HMRC had contacted the County Council regarding the failing of the RTI, and officers were working with Serco to supply HMRC with a response;

·         The County Council did have a Relationship Manager at HMRC who was providing constructive engagement and was not being adversarial.

RESOLVED

            That the update be noted.