Agenda item

Review of the ICT Service

Report of Strategic Director Environment and Community and Head of Customer Service and Information Systems

 

Summary

 

This report seeks Executive consideration of the outcomes of the Member and Officer IT Review Group and approval for the way forward.

 

Recommendations

 

The Executive is recommended to agree:

 

(1)               Measures to reduce the cost of the Council’s ICT Service through the implementation of an integrated, scalable and flexible staffing structure, selective external hosting of systems and improved procurement;

(2)               By the end of 2012/13, to make savings of a minimum of £300,000 resulting in a minimum 15% reduction to the base budget and which brings the costs of the function to 2.3% total Council spend (based on 2010/11 estimated total spend);

(3)               To continue to explore further cost reductions through shared service and joint opportunities with other Councils; 

(4)               The proposed change to the ICT service desk availability from 8am – 6pm, to 7am – 5.15pm Monday to Friday;

(5)               Not to implement an additional Out Of Hours support service based on an assessed low risk of failure and impact plus additional cost;

(6)               The setting up of an Information Systems Corporate Governance group with a remit to provide a corporate overview to the use of ICT resources, approve projects for delivery and realise targeted savings identified in the project business cases.

Decision:

Recommendations Approved

Minutes:

The Strategic Director Environment and Community and Head of Customer Service and Information Systems submitted a joint report to seek Executive consideration of the outcomes of the Member and Officer IT Review Group and approval for the way forward. The Executive thanked the ICT team for their support and flexibility with regard to the review.

 

Resolved

 

(1)               That measures to reduce the cost of the Council’s ICT Service through the implementation of an integrated, scalable and flexible staffing structure, selective external hosting of systems and improved procurement be agreed

(2)               That by the end of 2012/13, it be agreed to make savings of a minimum of £300,000 resulting in a minimum 15% reduction to the base budget and which brings the costs of the function to 2.3% total Council spend (based on 2010/11 estimated total spend)

(3)               That further cost reductions through shared service and joint opportunities with other Councils continue to be explored 

(4)               That the proposed change to the ICT service desk availability from 8am – 6pm, to 7am – 5.15pm Monday to Friday be agreed

(5)               That it be agreed not to implement an additional Out Of Hours support service based on an assessed low risk of failure and impact plus additional cost

(6)               That the setting up of an Information Systems Corporate Governance group with a remit to provide a corporate overview to the use of ICT resources, approve projects for delivery and realise targeted savings identified in the project business cases be agreed.

Reasons

It is the view of the Member and Officer ICT Review Group that outsourcing the whole of ICT Service Delivery is not a realistic option; the possible benefits do not outweigh the costs, and the national picture, and our local strategy is such that within three years other procurement options for data storage and communications will become available.

Structural changes are needed to reduce the management overhead and recognise the shifting requirements of the ICT team that will both reduce costs and put in place an integrated and scalable Information Systems team.

Establishing an IS Corporate Governance group to oversee ICT decisions with strategic significance including how we procure applications and systems in the future will improve the service overall, tying it more closely to Council objectives and priorities.

The benefits of a comprehensive out of hours monitoring and support service do not yet outweigh the costs; the proposed IS Corporate Governance group will review this as more customer services are delivered through online channels.

Options

Option One

Improved service governance

Establish an IS Corproate Governance Group to identify and realise “whole Council” benefits from the use of technology, ensuring best value and proper prioritising of the corporate IT Infrastructure resource.

This option is recommended to be implemented

Option Two

Improved value for money both in the function and across the whole council

Seek to reduce the base revenue budget, reduce further the capital investment in the infrastructure, and secure one off savings to bring ICT costs as a proportion of total council spend to under x% this year and for the next three years.  This to be achieved through

·        structural change and staff reduction

·        ICT automation, with savings in other services identified and realised through the IS Corporate Governance Group

·        More self service through the online channel, reducing service-delivery resource need in other services.  There are additional costs and risks attached to this approach, including security of data.  However, a strategy of transferring out, over time, key public facing service will mean that the security requirements are transferred also, while the Council retains control of the strategic direction.

·        better asset management, ensuring the Council is not over-licensed, have equipment or applications that are not used etc.

·        increased flexible working (fewer desks than staff) across the whole Council, with clearly identified savings to be achieved;

·        further rationalisation of printing

·        better portfolio management through application reviews

·        long term commitment to virtualisation and thin client

·        further simplification of the ICT infrastructure

·        reviewing how the Council sources its external services

This option is recommended to be implemented.

Option Three

Outsource the Council’s datacentre, releasing the server room and the need to maintain and monitor it, power it and cool it. 

The virtualisation project will, when complete this summer, allow the Council greater flexibility with regards to its physical infrastructure, including the possibility of moving the physical hardware elsewhere.  Virtualisation will greatly reduce the physical space that is required to host its infrastructure.

 

The usual reason for choosing to locate servers elsewhere is to transfer the risk arising from a poor environment.  The Council has good power into the building, has a site generator, has good power into the server room etc the current physical setup is appropriate for our requirements. 

 

Additional costs would be incurred from staff travelling to the off-site location, or contracting the host to carry out work.

 

In the medium term, it is likely that applications used by the Council are increasingly provided direct centrally, or from a supplier; this will reduce the future requirement for the Council to “own” services and hardware. Therefore it does not make sense to commit and limit  flexibility now by entering into a costly and long-lived hosting agreement.

 

In addition, there are no staffing savings to be made by taking this approach; physically looking after the hardware is the smallest part of the roles in the ICT team.

 

Finally, the good quality of our datacentre makes it possible to consider seriously a shared service with another authority.

 

The option to outsource the hardware is not recommended

Option Four (a)

Out of hours provision: outsource the monitoring our systems, and the taking action if an agreed list of services fail, out of hours. 

 

This is an unbudgeted extension of the service we currently provide to the Council but would address the risk of service loss, and can be accommodated in the savings that will accrue from the staffing structure changes.

 

This would extend the supported day for a sub-set of applications to match the published flexible working day of 07:00 to 22:00, Monday to Friday and to extend that support through the weekend and other non-supported days, Bank Holidays etc.

 

The Council already possesses the required tools to allow for event monitoring by a third party outside of the current supported hours of 08:00 to 18:00.

 

Feedback from users and members has indicated that support outside of the standard day is best targeted at the mail and web services including Blackberries.  Business application availability is not expected by most users. However, certain systems do feed information or make services available to the public via the web site so it is proposed that these systems are also monitored.

 

Exploratory discussions with providers indicate this kind of service is available for around £36,000 locally, around double that from a larger, regional operation.  To extend the cover to include overnight between 22.00 and 07.00 would increase this cost to over £70,000.

 

This option is desirable but not recommended as the need is not currently deemed sufficient to warrant the level of spend associated with it.

 

Option Four (b)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Option Four (c)

Out of Hours provision: Staff-up the in-house team to provide the out of hours standby and callout in respect of the services set out in Option Two.

To deliver what is described at Option Two, through use of in-house staff, would require 2 FTE technicians at approx £50,000 pa, plus additional costs arising from the need to move to a different pattern of working – 5 days from 7 rather than Monday to Friday, and a shift pattern spanning 07.00 to 22.00.

 

However, dependent upon the Council’s needs, known weekend working such as patching and major system upgrades could be accommodated without recourse to overtime, offsetting the cost. 

A far greater range of extended support could also be managed than through a third party, as well as more actual working hours in which “work” could be done.

 

However, this approach requires a critical mass of FTEs and can only work within a larger single technical team.  It is vulnerable to sickness and leavers, and given that we do not yet have a robust picture of out of hours needs

 

This option is not recommended at this time.

 

Change the working patters of the service desk team

 

This will allow earlier morning starts to meet the needs of Capita and pick up overnight failures earlier in the day, reducing the impact on public availability hours.

 

This option is seen as proportionate and is recommended.

 

Option Five

Exploration of the shared services opportunities with neighbouring and other local authorities.

The Review Group found that while there is not currently a like for like partner which would offer the maximum shared service benefit, efforts should continue both in seeking shared procurement, collocation of data centres and shared service provision.

This option is recommended.

 

Supporting documents: