Shared services programme: phase 1 programme closure report

4.0 Post implementation

The Oracle Cloud platform and services went live in early October 2024, and Phase 1 of the Shared Services Programme formally concluded on 31 March 2025.

In the months following implementation we were able to observe where things were working well, and where further optimisation was necessary. Some post go-live reflections on the operating environment are:

1. The key measure of any programme’s success is ‘did it achieve what it set out to do?’ The fundamental business driver for this programme was ‘operational necessity’, and not efficiency gains. It was imperative that SG and the other public sector organisations moved from the old, non-integrated platform onto new, modern and sustainable solutions that can support and enable our operations effectively. This has been achieved, and without significant organisation-wide operational disruption. That statement of course requires perspective. With 20,000 users, in many roles, across multiple professions and organisations that had localised ways of working, the change has landed differently. The ease with which each profession and community of users has been able to embrace the change will vary based on individual process challenges, system features, role adoption, system defects, report designs and similar. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems like Oracle Fusion are very large pieces of software covering hundreds of processes that are interwoven. We are confident that Phase 1 of this programme achieved a safe transition from old to new, and gave us the foundational technologies and capabilities intended, and a platform to build upon.

2. It has been many years since the Scottish Government implemented change with such a wide footprint. Our colleagues are not regularly asked to embrace technology and operational change at this scale, and thus it’s not a muscle we are used to exercising. Looking ahead there is work to do to embed self-service, optimise operating models, drive system adoption, enable the distribution and utilisation of extensive management information (MI)/ data insights and generally leverage the platform. Achieving this will require some focus on leaders, and leadership behaviour, to ensure that we do not work around the system and capabilities, but that we constantly ask more of it. The data within the system is the biggest asset, and that data needs to work for the organisation. That requires everyone to make a contribution.

3. Some individuals use only specific elements of the platform, whilst others (Financial or HR professionals for example) use broad capabilities. There is no universal story, with different communities, in different organisations, at different stages of their learning and embedding of change.

4. We knew at the time of embarking on the change that this was very likely to challenge us collectively given the scale of growth in the years following the last implementation of technology. A great deal has changed in the Scottish Government and the organisations with whom we share technology solutions in the last 20 years. HR, Finance and Purchasing systems have very large footprints, and many touch points, thus the potential to uncover unknowns was significant.

5. Whilst not every aspect went to plan, time and cost both increased significantly, we remain confident that we made the right decision and that we have executed the change well. Programmes of this nature are always a learning experience for the organisations, primarily because they are very infrequent. What mattered during our programme is that we could take confidence in the team we built, and the contributions of colleagues right across government and public sector organisations to make sensible, safe and professionally informed decisions that helped us land this change within our appetite for risk. We have reflected often on the lessons learned, not least about what it takes to execute change well at this scale.

6. Throughout the programme we spoke as a team about leaving the ‘old problems’ behind, whilst anticipating some ‘new problems’ that we would need to face into. We are confident that these new problems are preferable to the old ones, a key measure of success, and that we are moving forwards every month in the pursuit of operational effectiveness and benefits realisation. The new technology and operational capabilities are together key foundation stones in a wider corporate ‘platform’ transformation, key to operational effectiveness in the Scottish Government. We have tools we can grow with, optimise and leverage and we are on a platform that is ‘evergreen’ and ‘AI ready’, a key benefit of this change.

7. The work to optimise our capabilities, more deeply integrate solutions, build the best quality datasets and extract that information to inform and facilitate management decisions goes on, but we regard this phase of programme as a success overall – despite the challenges acknowledged. We have made an important step change in operational capability, and built a new mindset and approach to how we manage technology of this type. The most significant risks of a change of this magnitude are well behind us. Collectively we are focused on optimisation and benefits extraction and that provides confidence for the future.

8. We are still working on Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) delivery too, which was formally de-scoped from this programme. Oracle EPM is a suite of cloud-based software and a set of processes designed to help us plan, budget, forecast, report, and manage our financial and operational performance more effectively. It is critical to deliver the financial and resource insights that bringing people and finance data together offers, supporting decision making to drive public value of our SG budget. Release 3 of EPM is due to be implemented in 2026. The fact that EPM has been descoped and delivered later than the main programme indicates not least the complexity of the overall Shared Services Programme but also that we have been learning lessons as we go on the impact of system changes to users, and noting the need to phase further releases

9. Our approach to working with and preparing for change with the organisations with who we share this technology platform was highly valuable. This change was for these organisations also a major challenge, competing for resources, budget and leadership bandwidth. Many of these organisations were very generous with their time and contributions, and collaborated deeply both before and after go-live. With a centrally designed system, there has inevitably been a significant challenge for each org to land the change, embrace common processes and adapt their local arrangements to suit. For organisations with very limited resource pools this was a big ask. Since go live we have continued to collaborate, listen to their issues and develop system and process improvements collaboratively. Our goal is to make this platform work well for shared platform users, and in that regard there is still work to do to ensure that all aspects of the system yield the best outcomes for all. Feedback from the wide user community again varies, from very positive to unfavourable. The smaller public bodies have found it more challenging to embrace processes and technology that are designed primarily for larger organisations. This is something we continue to reflect upon to work towards win:win for all.

10. This scale of change is very hard to land on a large and diverse workforce. New technology, new processes, new operating models, and new terminology are overcome to some extent with training and change management, but it still takes time to embed such a change. Add a large number of support requests, emergent defects and a few sub-optimal process designs in some places to the mix, it was often challenging from October 2024 to circa September 2025 for colleagues. It is only once the system is live and used at scale that deep learning commences, and issues previously unseen in testing become clear. We have worked very collaboratively in the months since go live to remove issues, build knowledge, build user confidence, and optimise processes. Whilst a platform of this size and scope will always yield new requirements, and opportunities for improvement we believe we are in good, stable and forward-looking position today. Our attention is focussed on continuous improvement, data quality, reporting, analytics and user experience improvements where we see opportunities.

11. Persistent issues linked to timecards, overtime tracking and allowance payments have had persistent technical issues. Some colleagues have been deeply frustrated by what they see as simple fixes to be addressed, but alas they have proven to be complex. The operational bow wave of support tickets, combined with everyone learning new technology and processes has been tough to overcome. Whilst these issues have been more individually focused (change of grade, promotion, leavers, joiners etc.) the cumulative impact has been considerable. We have learned a great deal from this experience, with ongoing work designed to eliminate priority issues from the system now largely limited to issues relating to Time and Labour.

12. The technology continues to adapt to our own needs, validating our decision to move to a modern platform capable of undergoing many updates in-year. Our own operational maturity in designing the system to our particular user needs evolves continuously. The greater challenge ultimately will likely be one of self-service adoption, and utilisation. This ongoing challenge would benefit from sustained (Phase 2) commitments that would help us reinforce and embed the changes, aligned to Audit Scotland’s view that there is a need to continue to drive the culture change in our user base to derive the expected benefits from this large and complex programme.

13. Given the scale of this transformation, the potential for severe operational disruption was significant. We are proud of the fact that our planning and execution preparation means that to date we have not seen any of the most significant issues with the making of payments, financial reporting, payroll and other critical processes. There has of course been many post go-live issues to address. This was expected, but we have avoided the types of issue that destroy reputations and result in huge remediation expense.

14. The Scottish Government and the other public sector organisations who moved with us are now on a new, modern, sustainable Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. Whilst we are not yet issue-free, and there is work to do to ensure all the benefits are realised, we now have a platform we can build on. We can continue the journey of optimisation, and enjoy the benefits and innovations of quarterly releases from Oracle.

15. This programme was shaped as a major technology / platform upgrade. What it has actually achieved is far in advance of that. This programme has uncovered and faced into a great many related matters, in order to land the changes successfully in Scottish Government (SG). Matters of operating models, cultural acceptance of self-service (a journey just starting really), SG readiness for SaaS solutions, complex data protection challenges, the legal / commercial relationships between all the public sector organisations involved, and questions about the viability and suitability of shared services. Not all questions are answered. It’s a journey, with many phases, but the programme has changed SG and the ‘customer’ organisations in ways that were not originally imagined. There is a much deeper appreciation of the gap between what SG and our shared service customers really need, and where we were on the old platform. We weren’t moving forward, and we couldn’t see the issues clearly. Today we see more clearly the work ahead, the control gains, and the weaknesses yet to be closed. We will obtain data on many more aspects of key processes that we can work with, and use it to drive improvements.

16. Public sector organisations were able to use data from Oracle to produce the 2024/25 accounts, with Audit Scotland commenting that this represented a key measure of success for the Shared Services Programme.

17. The first two releases of Finance EPM functionality were delivered in 2025, as well as a data management capability that simplifies our ability to maintain the Chart of Account. More recently, the Workforce Planning module was also launched, as part of the ongoing EPM Project. There is further work to be done to deliver the remaining Finance EPM elements during 2026. The implementation of EPM has taken longer and been more challenging than anticipated.

18. Work is under way to optimise some of the HR process journeys that , in hindsight, we can see are not yet sufficiently easy and are a source of user frustration.

19. We have made a great deal of progress in our understanding and management of data within the system, which is key to the delivery of useable and insightful analytics and management information that is part of the benefits narrative. We have addressed system hierarchy anomalies between HR and Finance data structures as part of master data management capabilities.

20. We have worked closely with Finance users right across the customer base to embed the process changes and controls, support learning, make chart of account and data structure adjustments, write reports, build dashboards and drive consistent adoption.

21. Many reports have been optimised, written and made available.

22. We have successfully implemented four quarterly upgrades.

23. We have processed a huge volume of support tickets, and requests for change on the platform including dozens of organisational structure changes.

24. Ultimately, this programme has achieved its original goals. This programme was a ‘phase 1’ in a planned programme of multiple phases. The greatest risk now is that we stop here, and do not continue the journey to optimise and build shared services at scale. The platform we have built is capable of hosting many more organisations, and 10’s of 1000’s of users. Onboarding new organisations would entail fresh project work, but the benefits for all would be lower unit costs, and lower ‘run’ costs. The opportunity of shared services at scale is being developed in other papers and would be part of future phases of work if / when approved.

25. Oracle Cloud will deliver more and more value, that will be seen by all, as the product and our internal capabilities mature. The promise of integrated AI, digital assistants and other improvements will ultimately delight many users across the platform and offer the opportunity for future operational and organisational efficiencies which were not available on the old systems. The powerful data products we will see will inform and illuminate. The journey is really just beginning.

26. Our operational support teams have matured, and in many cases built good knowledge of the system, its workings and support needs.

27. We have come to better understand the challenge of working with and managing a system of the scale and capability of Oracle Cloud in small organisations. Small public sector organisations find it difficult to work around all of the role segregation embedded in the system for control purposes. Small organisations do not need all of the functionality of Oracle Cloud, and they do not have the organisational structures to run the platform effectively. We know that something needs to change for these very small organisations, either technologically, or operationally in the form of shared service provision.

Future Shared Services

• Strategic discussions on shared service delivery have broadened the vision beyond technology rollout, focusing on consolidating duplicated services and building alignment for greater use of shared services that could deliver significant efficiency gains over the next decade. There is work under way to lay the groundwork for establishing a Shared Services Board to drive this agenda at scale, in line with the Public Service Reform Strategy and subject to further Ministerial approval.
• The Public Sector Reform strategy is designed to transform how Scotland’s public services operate by driving efficiency, collaboration, and innovation across government and public sector organisations. Its core aim is to deliver sustainable improvements in service quality and productivity while reducing duplication and cost. The Corporate Operations Directorate is responsible for two PSR Workstreams.
• Under PSR Workstream 14, we have committed to optimising the shared HR, Finance and Purchasing platform, onboarding new public sector customers, and expanding shared service propositions to deliver greater efficiency and value. These efforts aim to consolidate duplicated services and build scalable shared service models that drive long-term operational benefits across Scotland’s public sector.
• PSR Workstream 15, Scaling Intelligent Automation, has strengthened the Intelligent Automation Centre of Excellence as a national shared service, providing governance, infrastructure, delivery and technical support for automation across Scottish Government and partner agencies. Early automation projects have delivered measurable efficiency benefits, and discovery work across key agencies is informing future opportunities. However, scaling the hub-and-spoke model for automation remains contingent on resolving funding and workforce constraints. Collectively, these initiatives reflect a strong commitment to innovation, collaboration, and sustainable transformation across Scotland’s public sector.