What Birmingham’s £216M ERP Failure Teaches Us About Public Sector Digital Transformation

The recent Public Interest Report into Birmingham City Council’s £216 million Oracle ERP project is a stark reminder: digital transformation can promise efficiency, cost savings and better services, but only if it’s done right.

Instead, what was meant to modernise finance, HR and procurement turned into a multi-year, £216.5 million burden on taxpayers. The root cause? Poor decisions made at the very start.

We’ve analysed the report and distilled key lessons to help other public sector organisations avoid the same fate.

What Went Wrong

1. Fragmented Governance
No single team had clear authority. Multiple boards overlapped, causing delays and blurred accountability.

2. Reactive Risk Management
Known risks—like complex payroll or data quality—were logged but not tracked or addressed until they became full-blown crises.

3. Big-Bang Go-Live
Finance, HR, payroll and procurement all launched at once. One failure derailed the whole programme.

4. Exploding Costs and Service Disruption
Initial budgets of £19M ballooned to over £216M. Delays and budget cuts hit essential services, and staff confidence plummeted.

5. Change Fatigue and Poor Adoption
Training came too late. No user feedback loop. End-users were overwhelmed and disconnected from the process.

How to Get It Right: A Practical Roadmap

1. Set Up Strong Governance

• One Steering Committee with clear RACI roles

• Stage-gate checkpoints aligned with development sprints

2. Make Risk Management Proactive

• Regularly reassess risks, not just log them

• Run deep-dive risk reviews, not surface-level updates

3. Roll Out in Phases, Not All at Once

• Use a phased approach to reduce risk

• Conduct a review after each phase to turn it into a learning opportunity

4. Put People at the Centre

• Build a network of change champions from each team

• Launch training early and in bite-sized formats

• Let users test features in real-world, role-based sandboxes

The Bottom Line

ERP implementation in the public sector is about more than tech—it’s about trust, people and getting the basics right. If Birmingham’s experience teaches us anything, it’s that digital transformation fails without strong governance, real risk control, phased delivery and user-first change management.

When public money is on the line, failure isn’t just expensive—it directly affects communities. To make transformation work, we must start smarter, stay people-focused, and give transformation the respect it deserves.