It’s one of the government’s biggest digital transformation projects – a plan to standardise half the civil service on a single SaaS system for finance and human resources across four of its biggest departments.
Oracle can now be confirmed as the big winner of the “Synergy Programme” led by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), working with the Ministry of Justice, DEFRA; and the Home Office.
The highly ambitious Synergy Programme aims to deliver shared corporate services for some 250,00 civil servants, with a common operating model and single SaaS platform backed by common data standards. The DWP went to market for an ERP provider and systems integrator in May 2023.
In a somewhat overlooked contract award notice late last month followed by an Oracle press release today, the government awarded the contract to Oracle, with support on delivery from a Deloitte and IBM consortium.
Oracle’s contract is for ten years. IBM’s is for an initial five. Both (awarded under a “competitive procedure with negotiation”) have the option for a two-year extension.
The contract notice said: “The COVID pandemic, and the challenging fiscal environment that followed as a result, has heightened the drive and need for more effective and efficient delivery by all Government Departments.
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“Key to this ambition is the ability to capture, manage and improve the quality of Finance and HR… data to enable better informed decisions.”
“The Synergy Programme is implementing Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM), including payroll, and Oracle Fusion Cloud Supply Chain & Manufacturing (SCM) to increase productivity, reduce costs, expand insights and enhance employee experience” said Oracle today.
“Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence and OCI will support supplemental analytics capabilities” it added, saying the shared services platform will run in the Oracle Cloud for UK Government & Defence.
An assessment of the programme earlier this year described it as a “carrying a number of delivery risks, primarily, resource constraints, supplier capacity and inflation” and “a large complex programme to deliver business transformation [that] faces significant pressure on its timelines and is competing for scarce resources.”
