Thursday 4th December 2014

Islington Council is on track to reduce its core finance costs by 40 per cent, amounting to £3 million, supported by its implementation of Collaborative Planning - a budgeting and forecasting solution.

Following its implementation in 2010, the solution has helped the Council by improving financial transparency and devolving greater responsibility to budget holders. It has recently gone live with the latest version of Collaborative Planning in preparation for managing further required cuts of £34 million in 2015.

Islington is the eighth most deprived borough in England and a significant proportion of the Council’s finances are needed to support children and adult social care services. Despite this, Government funding restrictions have meant that it's had to reduce spend by 35 per cent. However, the heavy reliance on manual processes made it difficult for the Council to interpret its financial position and make informed decisions.

Alan Layton, Director of Financial Management at Islington Council, explains, “Previously it was almost impossible to gather accurate forecasting information within a reasonable timescale, plus there was a high risk of error due to our protracted consolidation process involving numerous complicated spreadsheets.

“Collaborative Planning offered the added functionality and flexibility we needed and could crucially integrate with our existing Advanced financial management system. We can now quickly produce reliable monthly forecasting information, with minimal effort, and better understand our data.”

By replacing spreadsheets, Advanced’s web-based solution has automated and devolved the Council’s entire budget monitoring process, making it easier to access and analyse real-time financial information.