SAP it?

We’re having trouble understanding why everyone is getting their knickers in a twist about the SAP.

It’s only a computer system, after all, and the Council’s computer systems seem to be up and down like a tart’s … er, well … a lot anyway. Every time you ‘phone one of those infamous 0845 numbers about anything these days, they always seem to say ‘sorry love, the computers are down’, before explaining that in any case they can’t do anything for anyone about anything, because even though they’ve recorded everything about everyone, they haven’t yet been told anything about anything.

OK, so maybe SAP doesn’t have a great track record elsewhere, but nowhere else is “the best on the planet”, is it?

Also, no-one else can boast the resourcing that “the best on the planet” is able to provide. Take the Council Tax. It went up by 2.7%, against inflation of 0.5%. Even in Albert Einstein’s (hopefully temporary) absence, we can still work out that this means an extra £4,294,114 to spend on SAP (190,000 taxpayers, average tax of £1,027.30, 2.2% margin over inflation).

And if you add the £4,000,000 they’ve saved by cuts to libraries, roads, achievement, care, the PMC, etc., then that is WELL OVER £8,000,000 to spend on flying in armies of Bangalori analysts and programmers to work furiously in Taunton basements.

All this, of course, is in addition to the efforts of the “SuperUsers”, who swoop up and down the corridors of County Hall, capes swirling, fingers gliding over keyboards and elsewhere, soothing digital distress.

And as if that were not enough, there are all those key managers wandering around monitoring progress, logging disasters and having meetings in a place they call the War Room, about keys and other essential “issues around” security and data and stuff like that. Meetings have a proven track record of coming up with evidence of Excellence in the face of reality, and we are confident that the keys are being well managed.

Remember also that these guys are used to managing on the brink of chaos – according to Jonesy’s presentations around the world, they’ve been doing it for years.

So there may be a bit more confusion around than usual, but luckily we are dealing with committed partners here, so where’s the problem?