South Hams District Council

Background

South Hams District Council is a rural district council based in Totnes, Devon.  Since adopting TeamSpirit's HR and Payroll software five years ago, it now not only processes the payroll for its 600 employees, but is one of the first councils in the country to offer an outsourced payroll service to other nearby authorities.

The council has found that since implementing TeamSpirit there is no reliance on other departments to produce reports, the inputting of data is less time consuming due to a single point of entry and the system offers far greater flexibility than its previous solution.

The System

The council previously used a 20 year old in-house 'Pick' based system to process their payroll; there was no online HR system.  Outdated technologies meant that the council's internal IT department had to process and print the payslips and HR lists.  This was a cumbersome process involving staff from a number of areas of the council.

Six other software systems were considered before TeamSpirit, which was ultimately chosen on the basis of cost and the level of integration that it offered.

The council wanted a system that integrated Payroll, HR, P11D and Recruitment and that also linked to its accounting system.

With an extremely tight deadline for tax week one live running, the council decided to concentrate on implementing the payroll module first with HR following on at a later date.

The Benefits

The most immediate benefits were the single point of data entry, integration and the ability for the HR team to run its own reports.  Staff could now run the system themselves which led to greater efficiency, time saving and a reduction in costs.  In particular, it meant that the council could offer a much higher level of reporting, statistics and analysis.

The TeamSpirit system links to Excel and other Windows based applications.  This enables other areas of the council to make use of information from the HR and Payroll system, which previously would not have been possible.  It also allows improvements to be made in automating background IT processes, for example, BACS payments.

South Hams District Council believes that it has more than met a return on its investment, as the HR and payroll teams can now produce all the reports and statistics they need.  It has also meant that the council has fully embraced the Local Government directive for shared services.  It has started running the payroll for West Devon Borough Council, on a bureau basis with the option of online enquiries if required, and is now hosting a full TeamSpirit system for Teignbridge District Council.

Advice

South Hams District Council has gone through a steep learning curve whilst implementing the TeamSpirit system, not to under-estimate the time it takes to embed a new system.  Investing time at the start of the project will reap rewards later.  South Hams cannot emphasise how much thought needs to be given as to how the implementation will take place. 

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