Havering and Newham are testing the shared use of a budgeting and software system
Two local authorities in East London have set up a pilot on the shared use of budgeting and forecasting software as part of a longer term alignment in their IT operations.
Havering and Newham have begun to use the Collaborative Planning system from Advanced Business Solutions to provide each with a single overview of budgets at a reduced cost.
The two councils already have considerable common ground in their IT operations: they share Geoff Connell as head of ICT, and have formed a joint committee body, oneSource, to deliver back office services. They are also taking part in the One Oracle Project, under which seven London councils are using Oracle ERP software to share an IT platform: Havering is already using the system and Newham is due to begin doing so this year.
Owen Sparks, operations manager at Havering with responsibility for business partnering at Newham, said: "As both councils share services it is important that our systems and processes are aligned to enable us to work together as smoothly as possible.... We also have greater transparency of our finances, and with the continued squeeze on local authority resources, it remains crucial to have that knowledge easily and quickly accessible."
Image: Berdea through Wikimedia, Creative Commons, Attribution Share-Alike 3.0
