Hampshire County Council is saving £2m a year on IT
running costs after implementing an enterprise resource planning
application running on an IP network. By 2010, council officers
expect to have saved £10m.
The SAP system has been deployed to more than 9,000 users,
making it one of the largest local government implementations of
SAP. According to local government IT managers association Socitm,
the cost of supporting a user at the council has fallen to £1,665,
compared with the average cost for all councils of £2,023.
Hampshire County Council adopted thin client technology at the
same time as it implemented the SAP system. By moving to a thin
client architecture, the council was able to decommission its
mainframe and avoid purchasing an expensive replacement. The IT
department chose Citrix Metaframe software for its thin client
applications.
A council spokesman said, "A roll-out team was set up within IT
services, working with each customer site to identify their
requirements and help them with the transition from desktop to thin
client applications. In some cases, this meant working out
transitional arrangements that let the old system co-exist with the
thin client devices."
The SAP system replaced all the applications used by the
council's finance, human resources and procurement functions. More
than ｣400m of procurement a year is now being processed using SAP.
The council spokesman said, "A separate implementation team was set
up by the county treasurer who recognised the need to give priority
to the core financial applications used by all departments. The
multi-disciplinary team comprised IT experts and key users seconded
from county council departments."
The SAP system has been extended to include users at Hampshire
Fire and Rescue Service. The council is one of a handful to share
services with emergency services.
Council IT officers plan to extend the use of SAP within the
council to include its corporate time recording and project control
functions.
Further extensions of SAP will be considered if they meet the
council's conditions for IT projects: they must generate cost
savings and they must provide savings and service improvements at
the point of delivery that are visible to the customer.