ERP Success

The Shared Services Strategy for Government was launched in March 2021 with five objectives:

1. Shared Service Centres:
   Five Centres – departments in each Centre work together to
   design a common operating model, implement standardised,
   common Cloud based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
   services.

2. Commercial Convergence:
   Secure value, with central frameworks as the route to
   market, supported by a national pricing model for major ERP
   suppliers, driving commercial tension and flexibility.

3. Data Convergence Priorities:
   Common data standards for insight-driven decision-making.
   Improved data sharing in departments through integration and
   between departments with interoperability.

4. Process Transformation Priorities:
   Process improvement to transform services and user
   experiences, through policy standardisation, automation and
   interoperability. The priorities are Joiners, Movers and Leavers
   (JML), and Source to Pay (S2P).

5. Performance and Quality:
   User experience is at the heart of successful transformation; all
   Centres will use the Net Promoter Score to measure satisfaction.
   Regular reporting by all Centres against standard Key
   Performance Indicators

One of the great successes has been the creation of process and data standards for government.

The Government Finance Function in HM Treasury picked up the baton for this. There was some confusion at the start, as responsibility within the Cabinet Office was assigned to process and data leads within the Strategy team. But while the Strategy had the backing from ministers and senior leaders within the Civil Service, it didn’t have the authority to mandate standards across governemt.

The Functions, such as HR, Finance, Commercial, etc., do have such a mandate. They were therefore better placed to define process and data standards for use across government. These already existed at a high level and were (and still are) known as the Functional Standards.

The Government Finance Function, on behalf of the HR, Commercial and Grants Functions, put together a team to take define standards in greater detail so that they could be used as a blueprint for the configuration of the new shared ERP platforms. This was called the Functional Convergence Programme, or FCP.

Functional Convergence Programme

The FCP took the high level (level 3) processes already defined in the Functional Standards, updated them in consultation with the central functions and the functional teams in Departments, and then drilled down to greater detail (level 4).

In parallel with this a business glossary defined thousands of terms so that we could be clear what we meant by terms such as Civil Service Start Date. In the past it was common for Departments to have their own interpretation and definition of terminology, which proved a barrier to interoperability.

The FCP team also worked to create a data dictionary. This may not have met the standards expected by a data professional, but was a pragmatic approach to defining over 600 data items. Best of all, the Functions had the power to make these mandatory across central government. This meant that not only did the ERPs have a consistent set of definitions to work from, but all other systems that held this data would also have to conform to these standards.

Defining common data standards for use across Government has been a long-term goal for many years, but this represented the largest step forward ever taken.

The process and data standards were launched in July 2024 as the NOVA Functional Reference Model.

NOVA Functional Reference Model

These standards have been accepted by the three clusters who were not yet live (Synergy, Matrix and Unity), while Defence and Overseas will compare their live configuration to the standards to identify differences and map out a path to adoption.

Having centrally defined standards is a great accelerator for those clusters who are trying to get Departments to converge on a single way of doing things. Instead of arguing about who has the better procure-to-pay process or a better list of sickness absence reasons, they can simply adopt the standard and move on to focus on other issues.

Because the scope of the data standards extends to all systems, not just the ERPs, it will make future integrations and interfaces that much easier. It also opens the way for simpler cross-government reporting, as everyone will be recording the same information in the same way.

Strategic Value

The strategic value of this has not yet been fully appreciated by many, and it will take some time to achieve, but it will be huge if it isn’t diluted or weakened by short-term or siloed thinking.

This is one of the greatest success stories of the Shared Services Strategy for Government, and it wasn’t even delivered by the Strategy team (although it did provide strong support).

If this approach can work for central government, then it can surely be of huge value in other sectors, such as local government or higher education.