London Borough of Hillingdon

London Borough of Hillingdon Selects CIBER UK to Implement New Financial Management Facilities

The London Borough of Hillingdon is located to the West of London and is the third largest London Borough. Based in Uxbridge it supplies a diverse range of public services to people in the local community. London Heathrow Airport, Stockley Business Park and Brunel University at Uxbridge are within the borough boundary.

The Council is undergoing considerable change, and this is unlikely to lessen in the years ahead. Like all Councils it is under pressure from Central Government to modernise its approach to service delivery, ("modernising government"), work towards greater integration with other public service providers ("joined up government"), tackle issues such as lifelong learning, social exclusion and the need for community planning, and to encourage local participation in the democratic process. As a London Borough, it also faces the uncertainty of the potential impact of the Greater London Authority (GLA). Within Hillingdon a number of significant organisational changes have occurred in the recent past, and more are planned for the future.

The London Borough of Hillingdon has initiated a project to replace its core financial management systems. The Council recognises that its core accounting requirements could be satisfied by any number of packaged offerings on the market, but that there is a major opportunity to radically change the way that financial management is conducted by the Authority in parallel with the system replacement. CIBER UK has been selected by the Council to develop an initiative for ultimate implementation of new financial management facilities across the Council.

The key objectives for this initiative were:

• Upgrade or replace the core financial management systems
• To improve the ease of use of the systems for all stakeholders but especially casual users such as senior and budget managers.
• To improve the timeliness of information such that the current financial position is up to date within the system and not in other ancillary systems or paper
• To reduce the administration overhead of the processes by removing duplicate or redundant steps
• To provide a solution that meets current and future initiatives. E.g. e-Government
• To ensure that the financial management systems are vendor supported.