Oldham Council has spent over half a million in 13 months with an HR and payroll software specialist despite wasting £2.1 million on a new HR system called A1 in 2017

Another story of expensive Oldham Council incompetence not covered by their friends in the local press. Chronic-Oldham covered the disastrous rollout of Oldham Councils new HR and Payroll system in 2017 which went over budget at a cost of at least £2.1 million, was delivered months behind schedule because of its instability and social media was awash with disgruntled council employees after errors in people’s salary payments and hours calculations. Less than 2 years later the council had already made the decision to replace the software with a new system, today we trawled back through the OMBC’s published spending accounts and found that between November 2019 and December 2020 Oldham Council spent £512,671 with specialist HR and Software provider MHR International UK Ltd. Is this the best use of Oldham Council resources during a pandemic? How can the Council justify any increase in council tax while having a cavalier attitude to its public accountability for spending priorities?