The University of Edinburgh Senate has called the migration to a new Oracle finance system a ‘scandalous failure of management,’ following the botched transition which left staff, research students, and suppliers unpaid.

The representative body for the Russell Group university provided a statement of no confidence after administration failed to provide answers regarding the backlogs of payments to staff and others.

Oracle had first announced that the Scottish university was transitioning to Oracle ERP Cloud and Oracle HCM Cloud in 2019, with Inoapps joining as a project support.

The university moved its financial management to the new “People and Money” system in August 2022. The migration required a shutdown of this system for about a month, but the go-live date was delayed.

The downtime and transition period resulted in a backlog of payment processing, resulting in staff and others not being paid for their work. Further, the system itself was flawed, according to the Senate, which only increased the delays in payments.

In a document viewed by The Register, the Senate wrote: “The structure and terminology in People and Money are geared towards those with financial training and is exceptionally difficult for most people to use. It is not intuitive, and staff are regularly dedicating several working hours to tasks which should take a few minutes.”

Researchers have even been put off applying for grants because the university seemed incapable of processing financial applications, said the Senate.

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According to the Edinburgh Evening News, invoices dating all the way back to 2018 had yet to be paid to contractors, causing suppliers to forgo working with the university.

The Senate is seeking answers to “elementary questions” according to documents viewed by The Register. “If the answer is not known, that is a scandalous failure of management; if the answer is known and is being withheld, that is a scandal of a different sort.”