Decision details

Cabinet Member decision ECR01 19-20 approved the commencement of a procurement process in November 2019 for services to deliver a replacement business management system for the Council (the SmartCore Programme).  That decision delegated authority to the Director of Finance and Support Services to award the contract and enable commencement of the SmartCore programme.

A contract was awarded to Entserv UK Limited (trading as DXC) (“DXC”) in June 2020 for DXC to be the Council’s contractor for the transition from SAP to Oracle Fusion. 

Since the commencement of the contract a number of business design and delivery requirements for the programme led to changes to the contractual position to ensure a successful implementation of the programme.  These have led to additional charges and also the timetable for delivery. These have taken some time to negotiate and settle but now need to be incorporated as a variation of the contract.  The additional time for the programme to date and as now planned has contributed to the additional cost.

The Council and DXC have worked through a reset phase to agree and define further Council requirements and the programme was contractually paused during this time. DXC were paid under Letters of Authority.  The parties now propose a Deed of Variation of the contract to give contractual certainty.

Whilst these terms have taken time to settle there is an urgency for the Council to take this decision for reasons of contractual and cost certainty.

During the reset phase a forward plan notice was published in July 2021 for the following decision: Award of Contract:  Design and Implementation Support Service.  This decision for a variation of contract will now be made under that notice.

Due to the need for this matter to be determined as soon as possible the decision maker has secured agreement from the Performance and Finance Scrutiny Chairman for this decision to be taken with limited notice.

The Director Finance and Support Services has approved the changes to contractual requirements set out in section 2 of the report (Restricted to members only) and the allocation of funds set out in section 5 to enable execution of the contract variation between the County Council and DXC needed to complete the delivery of the corporate business management solution (Smartcore).

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