Oracle signs agreement with U.K.  gov’t

Oracle has signed a three-year agreement with the U.K. Office of Government Commerce to replace all legacy systems in U.K. public sector organizations, it announced Thursday.

The project will reduce costs because it reduces duplication of effort across different organizations, Oracle said in a statement. To date, U.K. public sector organizations have worked individually with Oracle and have customized the software to suit themselves, Oracle said.

The agreement will help local authorities to reach government targets of improving services to citizens, Oracle U.K. managing director Ian Smith said Thursday.

“This recognizes that local authorities have many business processes in common. By standardizing those business processes, things can be done better, cheaper and faster,” he said.

In many local authorities, as in many businesses, there has been a tendency to say “but we’re different,” and to demand customized software when it would be better to use standard tools and instead change the way things are done, Smith said.

“It’s simple, but quite a revolutionary approach,” he said.

The move will not completely stop local authorities from customization, he said, “but it will force them to justify it.”

Oracle is offering the U.K. government the same software pricing that it has established with the U.S. Government, with which it has a 25-year agreement, Oracle’s statement said.

“The government reckons it will save 11 percent of procurement costs through this, because of standardization, buying software in larger bundles, and the lower cost of procurement,” Smith said.