Shared services programme: phase 1 programme closure report

2.0 Shared Services Programme (SSP) Phase 1 objectives

The origin of the Shared Services Programme came from the recognition that the current Finance and People platforms, Scottish Government Enterprise Accounting System (SEAS) and Electronic Human Resources (e-HR) respectively, were an increasing source of organisational risk. They were no longer fit for purpose, having lacked the necessary investment for many years and they had not kept pace with the scale or functions of the organisation. The scope of the programme was at its heart a technology upgrade programme, designed to move the Scottish Government and other shared users of the incumbent system onto new modern software. We were in pursuit of the standard benefits available from any modern, integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution in an organisation the size and complexity of the Scottish Government. One single system, an integrated People and Money data set, joined up processes, data insights, reports and analytics and decision support were all key. Moving onto an ‘evergreen’ Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product, and away from the infrequent but costly major upgrades associated with on-prem software was also a factor.

The ‘Shared Services Programme Phase 1 – HR & Finance’ is a fundamental cornerstone of a broader initiative to provide the necessary step change to the holistic provision of corporate services. Phase one of which was building the foundational capability to improve corporate services, particularly our Finance, Purchasing and HR functions. The programme has delivered a new Oracle Fusion platform capable of significantly improving organisational capability to manage its financial and human resources. The efficiency and effectiveness of central Finance and HR functions will be enhanced through a combination of adopting standardised processes and the implementation of new technology.

Migrating onto new modern software was also necessary as a foundational piece of work ahead of developing shared service capabilities for customer organisations across the Scottish Public Sector. This phase 1 programme did not have the development and deployment of shared services as a goal, but it was necessary to complete phase 1 if we are to pursue future phases and the delivery of shared services at scale.

In addition to the core services of the Scottish Government central Finance and People Directorates, the programme also delivered the same new technology and processes into the customer organisations who were users of the legacy platforms.

Organisations the size and complexity of the Scottish Government cannot function effectively without appropriate HR, Finance and Purchasing systems. Today’s Software-as-a-Service ‘ERP’ solutions are the modern / typical choice of most large organisations, and in this regard the Scottish Government is not unique. Our needs were typical, and a good match for today’s leading ERP products.