Spain Fujitsu implements first ERP Shared Service across County Councils

Fujitsu Services, one of Europe’s leading IT services companies, today announced a groundbreaking shared services partnership with Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire County Councils. The shared service will be the first Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution in local government shared and common between county councils and will underpin the Councils’ delivery of back office services including HR, finance and procurement. The shared service also supports the Councils’ and Fujitsu’s wider aspirations to share further, delivering scalable capacity for further authorities of all types (counties, unitaries, districts, etc) to join the service in the future.

Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire Councils signed the innovative shared service governance contract in February signalling the official start of the sharing.

Fujitsu has engineered this service by combining its own ERP hosting requirements to invest in an infrastructure that provides service to the councils’ on an entirely managed service basis whilst offering savings over the cost of traditional stand-alone ERP solutions.

Cambridgeshire County Council cabinet member for corporate services, councillor John Reynolds, said: “This new shared service makes good business sense and fits in with the national requirement for the modernisation of local government, to develop ways to improve the performance and further reduce the cost of our back office processes by sharing appropriate services with like minded councils with the support and expertise available from the private sector. The income and savings we ultimately expect to be generated by this shared service solution will be re-invested in front line services such as caring for older people, the disabled and families, or providing improved schools, public transport and community facilities such as libraries.”

Councillor Bill Parker, Northamptonshire County Council cabinet member for finance and business support said: “By working in partnership with Cambridgeshire County Council and together with Fujitsu, we have already begun to take advantage of the opportunities for increased operational efficiencies and cost savings created through a shared service platform. Through this partnership, we will be transforming the way we operate our systems for back office services such as finance, HR, or procurement, offering better value for money and ensuring these support services run as efficiently as possible. This in turn should enable to us improve the services we offer to local residents, with the aim of passing the savings we will be making directly on to frontline services.”

Geoff Neville, local and regional government director at Fujitsu Services commented: “This new shared service is a major step forward in the local government sector for two county councils to share a common ERP solution. In addition, developing a sharable ERP solution (both application configuration and infrastructure platform) that is scalable for future authorities to join and benefits from best practice business processes has been a major undertaking, demonstrating innovation and requiring new ways of working to facilitate sharing. To see it coming successfully to fruition is a source of much satisfaction for Fujitsu.”