Purpose

To provide information about the contract
renewal and associated costs

Content

The Cabinet considered
a report of the Director of Corporate Services / Cabinet Member for
Corporate Governance and Transformation which sought approval of
the award of the HR and Payroll System contract for a period of
five years until June 2029, as the current contract was due to
expire on 30th June 2024.
 
The head of HR and Pay
Services was in attendance to present the information and to answer
the questions of the Cabinet Members.
 
The current HR &
Payroll System contract was with Midland HR Ltd (MHR) and due to
expire on 30th June 2024.
 
The HR & Payroll
System was required to ensure that all employees of RBC and
Schools, Members and external customers were paid accurately on
time and in the most efficient manner as well as ensuring that the
correct statutory, non-statutory and pension deductions were
made.
 
A Greater Manchester
(GM) Framework had been established in 2022 for councils to use for
the procurement of a HR & Payroll System.
 
The GM Framework was
for an initial five-year period, with costs fixed for the duration.
There was an option for two five-year extensions, however costs
would be revised at the beginning of each five-year extension.
 
The HR & Payroll
system provided by MHR continued to provide for the Council’s
current and future needs. The costs comprised of an initial
up-front cost of £159,174 plus an annual cost of
£224,983 funded through revenue.
 
This represented an
annual increase of £83,995 and therefore a request to Cabinet
for recurrent budget pressure funding was being made, along with a
request for one-off budget pressure funds for the initial cost of
£159,174.
 
Members asked and
received clarification on the reasons for the annual increase in
the cost of the contract.
 
Members requested that
consideration be given to the option to provide payroll services
for the local community and voluntary sector to offset the
increased cost of the HR and Payroll System contract and to
generate revenues for the Council.
 
Resolved:
1.   
That the award of the HR and Payroll System contract to MHR through
the Greater Manchester Framework for an initial period of five
years until June 2029, with the option to extend for a further two
five-year extensions until June 2034 and June 2039 be agreed;
2.   
That the one-off funds and recurrent funding as detailed in 1.6 of
the report be approved;
3.   
That the Assistant Director (Legal and Governance) be authorised to
execute all necessary legal arrangements to give effect to this
decision.
 
Reason for
decision:
Commissioning a new HR
& Payroll contract is necessary to:
Ensure continued
payment of salaries and correct statutory, non-statutory and
pension deductions for employees, Elected Members, schools and
external customers;
Support the
transformation programme through the continued development of
process automation and employee/manager access to free up time,
allowing teams to work more efficiently;
To provide accurate
and timely data to enable effective workforce related decision
making across the organisation.
 
Alternatives
considered and rejected:
The Council would be
unable to deliver a Payroll and HR Service without an appropriate
IT system. A paper-based approach is not viable.
Alternatives to the GM
Framework were considered, e.g. G-Cloud Framework, however pricing
structures were not as competitive as the GM Framework.