Stoke-on-Trent City Council partners with Civica in £1million integration of e-Procurement and Financial reporting systems
Integrated e-procurement systems for 1,000 staff to bring efficiency savings
and greater transparency in local services spending

30 October 2007, London … Stoke-on-Trent City Council has awarded Civica, one of the UK’s leading providers of consulting, software and services for the public sector, a 4-year, £1million programme to set up integrated e-procurement and financial management systems, improving control over the council’s £200million annual expenditure.

Civica will complete the first stage of the programme in March 2008 and the new systems will be made available to 1,000 staff, with the transition backed by technical support from Civica's consultants.

Based on Civica’s Financials and e-Procurement systems, the solution builds on the initial stage of the local authority’s drive for modern procurement by integrating with the IDeA eMarketplace procurement system.

The overhaul by Civica marks the latest stage in Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s services modernisation led by its chief executive Steve Robinson. As well as delivering a potential 10% in operational savings under the efficiency agenda, the integrated e-procurement and financial reporting will help the authority control – and show stakeholders – how expenditure is directed to improving services to residents.

Civica’s software platform electronically records all income and expenditure into debtors, general ledger and creditor systems. It will provide automated purchasing and invoicing and debt recovery processes relating to thousands of suppliers. The authority’s managers will be able to monitor, control and report key financial information, or provide budget projections, according to corporate priority, partnership, departmental programme or ward level, as required.

 
The integrated e-procurement systems automate all purchasing, payment and debt recovery operations involving the authority’s suppliers and creditors. Authorised personnel will be able to ‘punch out’ online purchase requests to suppliers and invoice electronically for services provided. Residents and suppliers will find it easier to make electronic payments to the authority. Because Civica’s Financials system imposes ‘rules-based’ authorisation, management will operate ‘commitment accounting’, checking availability of funds within designated budgets, before purchase decisions are made. 

Paul Atkins, project manager, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, explained: “The Authority Financials platform enables us to set up organisation-wide processes that reduce costs and manage our partners and suppliers better. Most exciting of all, with ‘commitment accounting’ and more flexible reporting capabilities, we will be giving councillors, officers and local people an up-to-date picture of how we are investing in local services.”

Stoke-on-Trent City Council conducted project risk assessments before determining the new systems’ scope. Council project management teams decided on a process-based integration over ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software which was felt to be too complex and have a poor track record in the public sector. The authority chose Civica for the programme because of the company’s expertise in process re-design and re-engineering and its track record of work for the borough on income management and other systems.

Paul Atkins said: “We are transforming service delivery to achieve our target of performance excellence. The programme to adopt ‘directorate-wide’ purchasing and financial controls is a massive step forward for us. We chose Civica as our partner because of their expertise and because they deliver on their commitments to us.”

Andrew Fraser, managing director, Civica Financials division, said: "Stoke-on-Trent City Council's decision to select a process-based solution will assist the modernisation programme giving tighter cost controls and support targeted local service improvements. The commitment by the council and Civica to re-engineer and streamline complex departmental and supplier interactions is the key to this transformation programme."