The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has completed phase two of its implementation of a new managed service Oracle Financials system from IT software and services provider McKesson. The solution replaces CPS's outdated financial system and is providing the organisation with the functionality to meet the central government requirement for 'resource accounting and budgeting'. Moving forward, the solution could also help CPS achieve significant resource, efficiency and cost savings in line with the efficiency gains stipulated in the Gershon Review.
By automating many of the CPS's current manual business processes, the McKesson / Oracle solution will enable CPS to achieve significant benefits across the entire business. These benefits include the removal of delays in its invoicing process, the improvement of its payment performance, and improved budgetary management through better visibility and control between CPS's central and local management. Further benefits are improved decision making on any expenditure and the ability to identify and measure ongoing savings. In addition, the managed service aspect will enable CPS to maximise the efficiency and value of its minimal in-house IT resources.
Jo Hall, Systems Accountant for the Crown Prosecution Service, explains, "The Office of Government Commerce reports that many IT projects miss their implementation deadlines and costs end up higher than originally planned. The excellent working relationship between CPS and McKesson in project managing the implementation of McKesson's managed service financial system has meant that the CPS has bucked this trend, going live on time and coming in on budget. The new system replaces our outdated, finance system and many largely manual systems and processes. This has already delivered business benefits and we are starting to recognise potential future areas for efficiency savings, such as e-procurement."
As a highly dispersed organisation, comprising 300 users across 42 different geographical areas, the Crown Prosecution Service set out to identify a new financial system that would help it to achieve cost and efficiency savings and provide increased visibility of its accounting and budgetary procedures in line with new government requirements.
The solution has been implemented in two phases by a dedicated team from the CPS working alongside McKesson and its Certified Oracle Partner. Phase one, which was a direct replacement of the functionality CPS had on its old system, including accounts payable, purchasing and general ledger, started in September 2004. Phase two, which includes cash management, accounts receivable and fixed assets, is going live in stages between June and December 2005.
Jo Hall concludes, "Any implementation of this size has its challenges, however, so far the project has gone according to schedule and we are confident that the final stages of the roll-out will enable us to achieve efficiency, resource and cost savings that will recur year-on-year. Fundamentally, technology implementations such as this, provide us with the flexibility and agility to provide a better overall public service."
