Wolverhampton City Council has renewed its agreement with Unit4 to use the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) software – albeit it with a shift from on-premise to a cloud based version.
It has also indicated that the move has been made in the absence of a viable alternative option.
The council has published a transparency notice showing the value of the new contract at £4.5 million over three years, with options to extend annually for another three.
It has been awarded without prior publication due to a lack of time, with the notice saying it has been done out of “extreme urgency” to ensure business continuity for the council.
It says: “The council considers that due to Unit4’s unforeseeable decision on 17 October 2023 to remove support for the council’s on-premises solution from 31 December 2024, the council does not have sufficient time to conduct market tests, complete a full procurement exercise and implement a new solution before 31 December 2024.”
Withdrawing support
In October of last year Unit4 revealed that it was planning to withdraw support for its on-premise systems by the end of this year. A report in The Register said this was part of a strategic move towards software-as-a-service and that company would provide support for customers in a migration to the cloud.
The ERP solution covers a range of functions including HR, payroll, procure to pay and income management, and can be used to support operations by Wolverhampton Homes, schools, the West Midlands Pension Fund and the Local Government Pension Scheme.
