Remember how Birmingham had to issue a section 114 notice (a.k.a. “bankruptcy, but for councils”) because it couldn’t afford its obligations under equal pay legislation? As previously discussed here, et seq.
…
Turns out it wasn’t the equal pay claims .
Birmingham
Birmingham
Move-a… side, and let the mango through… let the mango through
Re: Birmingham
Was that not general public knowledge already?
When I first heard about Birmingham's gargantuan IT overspend, I have to admit I asked my manager if we were a part of that: they're a new customer, but it turns out we're costing them of the order of 0.01% of what the Oracle project is.. I honestly find it hard to comprehend how software & services companies can get away with charging these sorts of amounts, and rather naively thought that we were past the days when ordering a database cost so much.
The way I took their declaring bankruptcy (OK, section 114) was an ever-diminishing hope they were going to avoid it, and then the equal pay case went against them & that was the final straw. I didn't realize they were trying to spin that that was the main (or even the only) cause.. from a blame perspective, you can see why they tried it: the historic equal pay couldn't be blamed on the current incumbents, but an out-of-control IT project lands firmly on their doorstep.
When I first heard about Birmingham's gargantuan IT overspend, I have to admit I asked my manager if we were a part of that: they're a new customer, but it turns out we're costing them of the order of 0.01% of what the Oracle project is.. I honestly find it hard to comprehend how software & services companies can get away with charging these sorts of amounts, and rather naively thought that we were past the days when ordering a database cost so much.
The way I took their declaring bankruptcy (OK, section 114) was an ever-diminishing hope they were going to avoid it, and then the equal pay case went against them & that was the final straw. I didn't realize they were trying to spin that that was the main (or even the only) cause.. from a blame perspective, you can see why they tried it: the historic equal pay couldn't be blamed on the current incumbents, but an out-of-control IT project lands firmly on their doorstep.
Re: Birmingham
Not to me…
It’s never just a database though is it - it’s the customised thing that LITERALLY MAKES ALL THE BUSINESS PROCESSES WORK, which is why such projects always turn out way more complex and expensive than planned - because people always massively underestimate how complex and poorly understood their actual business processes are.rather naively thought that we were past the days when ordering a database cost so much.
This applies to both the private and the public sector, it’s just that the private sector keeps quiet about it.
Move-a… side, and let the mango through… let the mango through
Re: Birmingham
True.. well, truish - my job at the moment is implementing a large proportion of those business processes (well, mainly helping various councils to do it themselves, I can't get through *that* many).. and yet we're doing that for a tiny fraction of what they're paying Oracle for their central database licencing.
Birmingham have an absolute fuckton of data to house, I think they're the largest council in the country in terms of people/addresses covered.. but I still don't see how Oracle can get away with charging a nine-figure sum for what they provide.
Birmingham have an absolute fuckton of data to house, I think they're the largest council in the country in terms of people/addresses covered.. but I still don't see how Oracle can get away with charging a nine-figure sum for what they provide.
Re: Birmingham
Largest council in Europe.
It's probably time to create smaller borough councils and the city's population and footprint grows.
It's probably time to create smaller borough councils and the city's population and footprint grows.
Re: Birmingham
It has a population of 1.14m. Apart from population growth, it has governed the same area since the Metropolitan authorities came into existence in 1974.
The next largest are Leeds at 0.81m and North Yorkshire at 0.61m. There are 11 English authorities with populations over 0.5m. The median local authority has a population of about 150k. Putting aside 3 curious cases (Scilly, City of London, Rutland), the lowest is just above 50k, and there aren't many less than 75k.
The general trend has been to increase the size of borough councils. Quite a few of the >0.5m population authorities are recently created unitary shire authorities such as North Yorkshire, Buckinghamshire, Somerset and Cornwall. If that's unwieldy, then it is a curious trend. But I'm quite prepared to believe that British ideas of local organisation are foolish.
What do we think the sweet spot is?