Herefordshire buys shared business system

The move follows the consolidation of the organisations' IT services in October 2009, and consolidates a move to shared services under which the council and PCT have had a joint chief executive since 2007, a single management team since 2008. It is the first time, however, that Hereford Hospitals Trust has joined them. A spokesperson for the council and PCT described the £1.5m back office systems contract with UNIT4 as "ground breaking". It will supply UNIT4's local government platform, based on Agresso Business World enterprise resource planning suite. He said it will improve payroll, HR and finance functions because these services will be joined up across the three organisations. "The contract will deliver savings of £2.7m a year on IT, and it will help us to improve services, introduce economies of scale and e-procurement will introduce savings," he told GC News. "It is due to go live in April 2011, and we think it is something that other public sector organisations will want to look at too. Other trusts have been interested." He added: "It also helps patients and other local people who can deal with services in one place."