Birmingham City Council, Europe's largest local authority, has no way of knowing whether financial fraud has been committed after it failed to run security and audit functions in a new Oracle Fusion ERP system.
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The English council, which was responsible for revenues of £3.7 billion [PDF] in 2021, also continues to struggle with "segregation of duties" features that set out who can legally see and control transactions, which is crucial to preventing fraud .
Fiona Greenway, director of finance and statutory officer, told the audit committee yesterday that the council would almost certainly never know if fraud had been committed.
"In terms of the segregation of duties … the fact that that decision was made somewhere … to turn off the only thing that could give us the security within the control environment of the ERP system [means that] I'm probably going to be in a position where "I can never give that 100 percent guarantee … that track just isn't there," she said.
