More UK councils jump on the SaaS bandwagon

As the local government sector in the UK continues to battle extreme budgetary pressure, Ashfield District Council and Denbighshire County Council are turning to TechnologyOne’s next-generation, mobile-enabled technology to transform their operations and deliver value for residents and businesses.

Nottinghamshire’s Ashfield District Council will move away from its legacy finance system to roll out TechnologyOne Financials, which will capture all its financial information in a single place, providing powerful dynamic reporting and enquiries for real-time decision making.

Joanne Froggatt, Assistant Director – Corporate Services and Transformation at Ashfield District Council said the ambitious and enterprising council was committed to maintaining and improving services in challenging financial times.

“We’re always looking at ways to increase our performance and efficiency, to ensure we provide value for money to our residents. The move to Software as a Service is part of our digital strategy and transformation journey,” Ms Froggatt said.

“Having modern, effective and robust business solutions is critical to transforming the way services are organised and delivered. Our investment into TechnologyOne’s SaaS platform will be key to reducing the number of systems which support our back-office, simplifying the user interface and experience, removing many different silos of data, and minimising required complex integrations between systems.

Following the lead of neighbouring Conwy County Borough Council, Denbighshire County Council in North Wales will also roll out TechnologyOne’s Software as a Service (SaaS) Financials solution, created specifically for the local government sector in the United Kingdom.

Councillor Gwyneth Ellis, Lead Member for Finance, Performance and Strategic Assets at Denbighshire County Council said with the rising cost of living and energy price rises putting additional strain on resources, the council was always looking to do more with less.

“TechnologyOne Financials will provide the infrastructure to support service delivery, help us achieve efficiencies and most importantly, keep pace with citizens’ changing needs and expectations,” Ms Ellis said.

“When it comes to our finance backend, we’re currently dealing with disparate legacy systems and multiple spreadsheets, which leads to some duplication of data and effort. Our current on-premise software lacks the flexibility needed to further help our teams be as efficient as they can possibly be to best serve the community.

“More effective flows of data will help us drive intelligent digital services and improve our investment decisions. This new SaaS solution will allow us to work from a single version of the truth and improve the accuracy of our budgeting and forecasting, which is absolutely crucial in this climate.”

Leo Hanna, UK Executive Vice President at TechnologyOne, said a growing number of unitary authorities and district councils across the United Kingdom were turning to TechnologyOne amid increasing inflationary pressures.

“Unitary authorities and district councils across the United Kingdom are facing huge challenges: non-integrated legacy systems, ageing infrastructure, budget pressures and rising community expectations, to name just a few,” Mr Hanna said.

“Progressive organisations recognise that digital transformation is the key to solving many of these challenges. TechnologyOne’s Software-as-Service enables councils to operate effectively as organisations, and champion the digital needs of their communities.

“And of course, the greater protection against cyberattacks that modern IT systems gives is a welcome additional benefit for local authorities, who can’t afford to see their system brought down by hackers.”

TechnologyOne’s growth in the local government sector follows a significant investment by the Australian-founded company into its UK operations, having just opened its new, state-of-the-art office space in central London for its 120+ strong team.

“Our SaaS ERP and implementation methodology helps us de-risk these large, complex digital transformation projects for our customers.  We know our solutions are hitting the spot with the local government sector, our operations are well resourced, and we are poised for growth in the UK,” Mr Hanna concluded.