Adult Social Care IT System

The request was partially successful.

Dear Enfield Council,

I understand that the Council currently uses the Carefirst system from OLM. OLM are in the process of developing a new IT system, called Eclipse.

Q1: Please provide copies of any papers which discuss Eclipse. I will accept reasonable redaction of commercially sensitive information and personally identifying information
Q2: Has the Council made any decision to move to Eclipse? If so, and if not captured by Q1, please provide copies of any business case
Q3: If the answer to Q2 is 'yes', please quantify the cost to the Council of moving to Eclipse - licence costs, implementation costs paid out to OLM and other third parties, and internal costs. If these are not yet fully known, I would expect the Council to have estimated them for the purposes of agreeing a business case
Q4: If the answer to Q2 is 'yes', please provide details of the procurement process which the Council followed

Yours faithfully,

Mark Proctor

complaintsandinformation, Enfield Council

Thank you for your email.

We will respond as soon as possible.

Regards,

Complaints and Access to Information Team,
Enfield Council.

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complaintsandinformation, Enfield Council

1 Attachment

Classification: OFFICIAL

Dear Mr Proctor

 

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request received on 17^th
October 2017, where you requested information about Enfield Council’s
Adult Social Care IT systems. My apologies for the delay in responding to
you.

 

I can confirm that the London Borough of Enfield holds this information.
Please find the answers to your questions below.

 

Response

 

Q1: Please provide copies of any papers which discuss Eclipse. I will
accept reasonable redaction of commercially sensitive information and
personally identifying information.

 

The Council does have a contract with OLM Systems Ltd for their Platform
for Care solution .There is only one reference to Eclipse (case management
system for Adult Social Care) which is one of the mentioned software
applications. Eclipse is only mentioned secondary to the main contract OLM
Systems , as highlighted below.

 

[1]cid:image004.png@01D36397.C77791F0

 

Q2: Has the Council made any decision to move to Eclipse?

 

Yes

 

Q3: If the answer to Q2 is 'yes', please quantify the cost to the Council
of moving to Eclipse - licence costs, implementation costs paid out to OLM
and other third parties, and internal costs. If these are not yet fully
known, I would expect the Council to have estimated them for the purposes
of agreeing a business case.

 

The figure is for the full contract price and is not broken down
separately to include Eclipse. The full contract is on the London Tenders
Portal, and can be viewed here:

[2]https://procontract.due-north.com/Contra...

 

Q4: If the answer to Q2 is 'yes', please provide details of the
procurement process which the Council followed

 

The Council undertook a compliance procurement using a crown commercial
service framework. (LASA E-Market catalogue)

 

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be
submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your
original letter and should be addressed to:

 

Complaints and Access to Information Team

Email – [3][Enfield Council request email]

 

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.

 

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information
Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9
5AF

 

Kind Regards

 

Nancy Wilson

Complaints and Access to Information Coordinator- Gateway Services

Finance, Resources and Customer Services

0208 379 2729

Enfield Council

Dugdale Centre

39 London Road

Enfield

EN2 6DS

 

Enfield Council is committed to serving the whole Borough fairly,
delivering excellent services and building strong communities.

 

 

 

 

show quoted sections

Dear complaintsandinformation,

Holy Mother of God!

You just spent £1,682,490.00 on a software system which isn't live anywhere! Are you insane?

And when you say that you went through a 'compliance' (sic) process, do you mean that you just bought this £1.7 million SOFTWARE system from a catalogue? Without comparing it with anything else?

Seriously?

This is taxpayers money. Over the 5 year contract period that's more than £300k pa. For an unproven system. Unproven and untested. And it's only software, it isn't as if you own a building at the end of it all.

Muppets.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Proctor

Jane reynolds left an annotation ()

Mark, intemperate language isn't really fair. The people who have answered your request aren't responsible for the spending.

Having said that, I can't see how a system for adult social care can cost so much. I've looked at a few full systems - children's and adult social care combined - and they were all in the range £1.2 - £1.5 million over 5 years. So this contract looks to be at least double the going rate (given that it's only for adults).

If Enfield council really didn't go through a procurement process and they ended up paying double, then I think there are questions to be answered.

You say that the OLM Eclipse system isn't live anywhere yet - if this is the case, then paying double the going rate seems particularly odd.

Mark Proctor left an annotation ()

Hi Jane.

Yes, you're right, I shouldn't have used derogatory comments. I've apologised in a subsequent FOI request.

I don't know what gets into councils, sometimes. I've heard that OLM's business model is to offer their software free at first, but then to charge an astronomical annual fee.

No public body should pay serious money for an unproven software system. There are just too many failures. If Enfield wanted to do a development partnership, fair enough, but this deal is ridiculously expensive AND carries all the risk. They could have had something stable, low-risk for half that money.