Report of the Interim Director of ICT attached.

This report provides a further update on the proposed reshaping of Council's Information and Data Strategy and includes an update on the resilience of the Council's IT service provision.

Further to minute RGSC/19/54, the Committee considered a report of the Interim Director of ICT, which provided an update on the proposed reshaping of Council's Information and Data Strategy.  The report also included an update on the resilience of the Council's IT service provision.

Some of the key points referred to in the report included:-

·                An overview of the work that had been ongoing to ensure that the Council remained on track in order for the Cabinet Office to deem the Council PSN compliance in 2020;

·                An update on ICT resilience and key projects;

·                The reasons for a pause in data storage migration in relation to the new Data Centre Programme and the work being done to get the project back on its critical path to limit the impact to timescales and budget;

·                Details of work that was being undertaken under the Network Refresh Programme;

·                Progress to date with the procurement of a new core telephony and contact centre systems;

·                An update on the progress in the adoption of the Liquidlogic suite of systems;

·                The Council’s intended move to adopt Microsoft technology for productivity, collaboration and communication, in place of the current Google software, which was scheduled to be completed by the end of September 2020;

·                An update on the progress to date with the refresh of the ICT strategy; and

·                The ICT revenue and capital budget positions.

Some of the key points that arose from the Committees’ discussions were:-

·                An assurance was sought that the Council did not share residents’ personal data with external companies other than its required partners;

·                An assurance was sought that the Council would achieve PSN compliance in April 2020;

·                What were the financial implications associated with the delay in the data storage migration in relation to the new Data Centre Programme and who would absorb this cost;

·                Why was the original decision taken to use the Google platform for collaboration when Microsoft offered a similar product at the same point in time;

·                Were there any critical legacy systems that were currently operating on the existing Google platform and if so, what steps were being put in place to ensure these transitioned over to Microsoft without significant risk;

·                There was concern that the intended implementation target date of the Microsoft collaboration platform was ambitious given the number of other significant project that the Directorate was currently working on; and

·                There was slight concern that the ICT strategy was being refreshed whilst the Council did not yet have a permanent Director of ICT in post.

The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources assured the Committee that the Council did not provide any personal data it held on residents to external companies, other than its partners and only where it was required to do so.  He added that in most, if not all circumstances, any data that was shared was anonymised.  He added that the Council was currently looking at how it collected and stored residents’ data with a view to adopting an appropriate set of principles.

The Head of Programme Office assured the Committee that the work that had been undertaken to date was on track for the Council to achieve PSN compliance in April 2020.  The Committee was advised that analysis would need to be undertaken of some of the legacy systems to identify what they currently supported on order to identify suitable alternatives.

In terms of the financial implications in the delay of the data centre migration, the chair asked for the costs and officers agreed to provide accurate costs following the meeting. However, it was confirmed in the meeting that any costs for the changes to the network design would be absorbed by the supplier.

The Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer noted the concerns raised in refreshing the ICT strategy when a permanent Director was not in post and advised that interviews for this position were being undertaken on 7 February 2020.  She also advised that the original decision to use the Google platform for collaboration was taken based on it being the most cost effective option at the time and acknowledged that since then, Microsoft had developed its collaboration platform (Microsoft 365), which now had greater functionality than the current Google platform.

The Head of Programme Office reaffirmed that it was the intention of the Directorate to complete the migration from Google to Microsoft 365 by the end of September 2020.

Decisions

The Committee:-

(1)     Notes the report; and

(2)     Requests an update report to a future meeting on the progress being made with the migration from Google to Microsoft 365 and all other major ongoing IT projects.