Havering Council reports cost savings of £1.5 million per annum following a transformation of its back-office IT systems and business processes carried out through partnering with Capgemini UK plc. The Council says that the savings will rise to £2.5 million per annum once the second and final phase of the transformation is completed in April 2012. Havering Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Havering, which has a population of 230,000, and Capgemini UK plc is part of the Capgemini Group, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services.

The first phase of the transformation project, completed in just ten months, encompassed the majority of back-office functions at Havering including finance, payroll, HR and procurement, and has resulted in a significant reduction in paperwork and bureaucracy. A multiplicity of complex procedures has been replaced by simplified and standardised business processes based on proven international best practice. The project also involved migrating the Council from ageing earlier-generation IT systems to the latest Oracle enterprise-wide suite of business applications, custom-designed for UK local authorities.

Andrew BlakeHerbert, Group Director of Finance and Commerce at the London Borough of Havering, said: ‘Working with Capgemini, we have transformed our back office from being a largely paper-driven bureaucracy into a focused, modern and efficient business model - saving millions of pounds in the process. The first tranche of savings resulting from this transformation is already in the bank. Over the next five years we expect to save at least £15 million in back office cost, helping us protect frontline services for local people while managing large reductions in Government funding. We don’t know of any other local authority in the UK that has successfully managed such a wide-ranging change programme in such a short space of time.’