West Sussex County Council Oracle Fusion rollout delayed again as costs balloon to £41M

West Sussex County Council has once again delayed the implementation of Oracle Fusion for HR and payroll, pushing the go-live date from April to October 2026. The latest setback marks another chapter in a troubled project that has seen costs balloon to more than 15 times the original estimate, now standing at approximately £41 million.

In a notice to schools, the council explained that the revised timeline reflects "the scale of the change, impacting over 20,000 users, and the need to ensure a safe, stable system with a reliable and accurate payroll, particularly for schools and term-time employees."

The project's troubled history dates back to November 2019, when the southern English authority agreed to spend £2.6 million on moving off its legacy SAP system onto Oracle Fusion. What followed was a series of setbacks, budget revisions, and management changes that have transformed what was meant to be a straightforward system migration into a cautionary tale of public sector IT procurement.

Initially, the project was expected to go live in 2021. However, the council later decided it needed additional suppliers to help change its business processes, resetting the budget to £14.07 million. This included £7 million allocated in March 2021 and £7.07 million in October 2022.

Systems integrator DXC began working with the council on the project under a five-year, £4 million contract in May 2020. Auditors EY later identified "weaknesses regarding budgeting, governance and risk management" in the project's execution. By July 2023, the council determined there was no real prospect of a deliverable plan being agreed, leading to the termination of the agreement with DXC on September 1, 2023.

Despite the contract termination, DXC had already been paid approximately £6.6 million throughout its involvement with the council on the project – more than 50 percent above the original contract price.

The financial implications have extended beyond the initial budget overruns. Documents released to a council committee in January show that the expected use of funds from the sell-off of council buildings has tripled in the current financial year compared to a year earlier. Capital receipts are projected to increase from £4 million in 2024/25 to £12 million in 2025/26 to help fund the project.

A council spokesperson stated that the total estimated cost for the program is around £41 million, comprised of the initial £14.07 million spent during earlier phases and the current approved budget of £27.048 million for completion. "We generate capital receipts from the sale of assets and routinely sell assets that we no longer have an operational use for. West Sussex County Council has made a financial choice to use the receipts available to help fund the implementation of Oracle," they said.

The council's Performance & Finance Scrutiny Committee reported in January that the Oracle Fusion finance and procurement system was deployed earlier that month to 917 users in line with an "approved timeline" – itself a revised timeline that had already pushed back the original 2021 target.

This case highlights the challenges faced by public sector organizations in managing large-scale IT transformations, particularly when dealing with complex enterprise software implementations. The combination of underestimated costs, extended timelines, and the need for additional resources has resulted in a project that has become significantly more expensive and time-consuming than initially planned.

For West Sussex County Council, which manages a budget of around £2.3 billion annually, the Oracle Fusion project represents a substantial investment of time and resources. The decision to use capital receipts from asset sales to fund the implementation reflects the council's prioritization of modernizing its systems, despite the project's troubled history.

The October 2026 target date provides a new timeline for completion, though given the project's history of delays and cost overruns, stakeholders will be watching closely to see if this latest deadline can be met without further complications.