Somerset Council shells out ?1.2m for new HR system

Somerset County Council is investing in the improvement of its human resources operations.
The authority, which has an estimated 20,000 employees, has signed a ?1.2m contract with software and services company MidlandHR and Payroll Solutions.
The contract is for Midland's Trent software, which automates HR tasks such as people management, recruitment, payroll, budgeting and benefits administration.
The software aims to make all of these capabilities easy enough to use for line and business managers and will be integrated with the council's existing business applications using XML.
Chris Bilsland, Somerset's corporate director, said in a statement that Trent meets the council's need to improve HR management and service delivery as well as gives Somerset the opportunity to possibly provide these services to other organisations.