Barnet Council’s seamless Oracle Cloud payroll transformation
Overview
In 2024, the London Borough of Barnet Council undertook a significant digital transformation programme to modernise its payroll operations by migrating to Oracle Cloud. A safe transfer to a new payroll system was critical as wages, pension contributions, and taxes needed to be paid correctly and on time throughout the migration.
The challenge
Barnet Council faced a strict timeframe to move payroll operations to the new ERP platform while ensuring operational continuity and maintaining uninterrupted payroll service to all employees. With limited internal Oracle experience, the Council needed a partner who could deliver a smooth transition, ensure salary accuracy, and avoid the costly implementation errors seen in other local authorities.
Our solution
Liberata deployed a dedicated delivery team with more than 80 years of combined payroll expertise.
Our agility, technical capability, and proven record ensured all the council’s targets were met.
Our approach included:
- Aligning project scope, risks, and decisions with the Council’s Programme Steering Board
- Managing all project stages from requirements, design and testing, through to successful transition and deployment
- Executing parallel payroll runs to validate outcomes and remove discrepancies
- Flexing resources on demand to meet evolving project requirements
- Producing a comprehensive Payroll User Guide to support user adoption
- Maintaining clear and responsive stakeholder communication
- Completing delivery on time and on budget
Key to the project’s success was the close collaboration between Barnet Council, Mastek (their Oracle implementation partner), with Liberata acting as the specialist bridge between the two.
The project rollout
Despite a mid-project timetable change, the migration remained on track thanks to agile replanning and flexible resource management. Over 12 months, the Council and Liberata teams delivered a successful go-live in April 2025, followed by a three-month hyper-care period to ensure successful user adoption and technical support.
During testing, three parallel payroll runs were executed, with deliverables re-engineered to prioritise high-risk areas such as calculations, statutory elements and pensions, resolving all issues before go-live.
The result: a 99.9% payroll accuracy rate and minimal post go-live issues.
Key outcomes
Barnet Council has fully implemented Oracle Cloud. It is more user-friendly than previous systems, providing managers and employees with access to the best tools to perform their jobs well.
The migration realised immediate and sustained benefits:
- Zero disruption to payroll operations throughout implementation
- 99.9% payroll accuracy from day one
- Full transition to Oracle Cloud within the timeframe and budget
- Increased automation of payroll processes, enabling greater efficiency and accuracy
- Improved employee experience through the Oracle Portal
- Seamless transfer of information across Finance, HR, and Payroll
- Supported the Council’s long-term digital transformation goals
An on-time and accurate project
“Payroll accuracy for us is non-negotiable. We were confident that Liberata’s experience would keep our staff paid correctly through the change. They absorbed timetable shifts without any issue and delivered a reliable Oracle Cloud payroll we can rely on now and in the coming years.”
Jon Bell, Assistant Director – Human Resources & Organisational Development, London Borough of Barnet
Why Barnet Council chose us for their Oracle Payroll migration
Barnet Council chose Liberata for our proven capability to deliver system migrations with zero disruption. Our depth of public sector payroll experience, coupled with our robust approach and proven reliability, gave them full confidence in our ability to deliver a safe transition and ongoing stability.
Whether migrating your HR and Payroll services to Oracle Cloud or another ERP platform, Liberata ensures a seamless transition – combining unmatched expertise, proven reliability, and deep operational insight, to make your ERP migration smooth, effective, and future-ready.
Whatever your Payroll migration needs, Liberata delivers
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