Liverpool City Council has completed a six-week data
migration project to get its £5m housing benefit and council tax
system up and running.
IT staff moved 200,000 council tax accounts and details of 80,000
housing benefits claims from its 14-year old legacy VME mainframe.
The replacement system is run by Liverpool Direct, a joint venture
company set up by the council and BT in 2001. It uses iWorld
software from SX3, Oracle 8i database technology, and two Sun E10K
servers.
"The systems were so different that it was a major undertaking.
That is why we did three trial migrations before we did the big
one," said project manager Brendan Lavelle. "Because the new system
is Oracle and browser-based, it can integrate with other
web-enabled systems and allows for enhanced integration."
The new system, which also handles non-domestic rates, has already
been linked to the council's Electronic Document Management System,
introduced in March. The council is also hoping to integrate with
other systems. A spokesman said this would not have been possible
with the previous system.
The council was criticised in the summer for accumulating a backlog
of 8,000 claims during the transition to the replacement system.
Claims were processed manually between mid-August and 6 October,
when the new system went live.
The council now processes about 2,500 claims a week, as well as
dealing with about 3,500 other items, such as council tax
cancellations and adjustments. Officials said the backlog would be
cleared by Christmas.