How is Devon County Council Transforming its Finance System?
Devon County Council has signed Unit4 ERP to provide a digital platform for its finance, procurement and financial planning and analysis functions. How will the platform help the Council to transform its finance system?
Serving a population of over 750,000, Devon Country Council is the largest local authority in Southwest England.
The Council will be replacing its FINEST (from Software AG) solution, with solutions from Unit4, and additional professional services from Embridge, a Unit4 Elite partner.
Unit4 has helped other UK councils to transform their decision-making
Devon County Council is not the first council that Embridge has helped deploy Unit4 solutions, it has also supported Surrey County Council, Cherwell District Council and North Lincolnshire Council.
Embridge and Unit4 will deploy solutions including Finance, Procurement, and Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A).
In addition to this, the council will also, as part of the solution, integrate other third-party solutions. This task should be made simpler because of the microservices architecture that Unit4 ERP is based on.
The Council will also use Proactis to deliver invoice process automation and HeyCentric, an income management solution.
James Arvin, Director, Public Sector UKI, Unit4, highlighted that it will bring its expertise to the Council’s transformation journey: “Our wealth of experience gained in working with local government means that we understand its nuances. As a result, we have built tailored solutions which provide the functionality, agility, and efficiency needed to combat the complexity of that environment.”
This recent decision from Devon County Council further cements our market-leading position in the sector.
The platform will give the Council flexibility to update the software
Devon County Council is looking for Embridge and Unit4 to deliver a streamlined implementation based on best practices seen by other councils, and once deployed it is hoping it will benefit the council’s finance system.
The Council will benefit from modern, cloud-based enterprise software solutions that will transform the way its people work, and workflows and tasks that will automate processes, resulting in increased efficiency and accuracy.
Dynamic, real-time reporting will enable a better understanding of the financial health of the council and improved management insights and will help to provide accurate forecasting enabling real-time decision-making.
Improvements will also be seen in budget management and monitoring, and through this new technology, an enhanced citizen experience will be deployed with faster service delivery via streamlined processes.
In order to future proof, the platform will give the Council the flexibility to further improve its software architecture in the short, medium and long-term.
Emma O’Brien, CEO of Embridge Consulting explained that the Council is focusing greatly on strengthening its digital capabilities and the implementation of the technology reflects this.
She said: “The Devon project team has shown its desire to make meaningful change in the early stages of our engagement, and the collaboration between all parties has already been an extremely positive experience.”
Continuing, Emma added that Embridge will support Devon City Council by putting their local community first: “Our track record of supporting significant and successful finance transformation programmes across the UK Local Government means that we can bring industry expertise and insight to Devon with equal focus on the people, process and technology change that is essential to success.”
It is essential that councils look to transform their organisations to ensure that they are upgrading their finance systems and focusing on improving decision-making to be best there for their local communities.
