Report of: the Head of Business Improvement.

Purpose: to update members on progress with the ICT Transformation Plan.

Recommendation: to note the report.

The Committee considered the report of the Head of Business Improvement on progress with the ICT Transformation Plan.

The Head of Business Improvement and the Chief Technology & Information Officer introduced the report and answered questions from the Committee.

The Committee noted:

·         the current staffing structure, including interim appointments and changes in personnel and roles, and the need to invest in specialist skills required by moving ICT in-house;

·         the transformation plan was progressing although the implementation of inter-related actions was more complex and prone to overrunning;

·         a permanent structure and staff should be in place around September;

·         the transfer of skills would include a catalogue of documents covering the work, service level agreements, and processes to reduce dependency on individual knowledge

The Committee resolved to note the report.

Report of:     Head of Business Improvement

Purpose:       To update members on progress with the ICT Improvement Plan

Recommendation: That the Audit & Governance Committee considers and notes the report.

The Interim Head of IT, the Head of Business Improvement, and the Board Member for Customer and Corporate Services presented the report on the progress of the ICT Improvement Plan, as requested by the Committee at its meeting in September.

In discussion the Committee noted the following points:

1.    The focus currently was on increasing the technical and customer service skills of the operations team. A number of actions had been added to the action plan to reflect this and other changes to the priorities. Deadlines had been revised or amended to make these more achievable. The plan was under continual review to make sure it maintains its relevance: all actions were now in progress with a new delivery date where appropriate.

2.    The council had appointed a new operations manager and a new service desk manager to replace staff who had recently left. Interim appointments were used to facilitate the one-off transformational work and to fill time-critical posts; permanent staff would be appointed to a revised staffing structure at the end of the reorganisation.

3.    The operations team had been reorganised into smaller specialist teams.

4.    Technical solutions such as better data analytics and upgrades to the case logging system (vFire) to allow more efficient and timely case handling were being put in place.

5.    The setting of the performance framework was on hold pending completing testing of systems to allocate and manage cases as currently there was not enough information to differentiate between the different types of case. Once the case management and alerts system was working effectively the framework would be set.

6.    Costs including extensions to contractors’ contracts were contained within budget using funds from staff vacancies.

The Interim Head of IT agreed to circulate the updated improvement plan to the committee with new completion dates and progress.

The Committee agreed to note the report and the progress made.

Purpose:       To detail the lessons learnt from the ICT transition to the new service provider, SCC, on expiration of the contract with Oxfordshire County Council.

Recommendation: That the Audit & Governance Committee notes the report.

The Chair took this item next.

The Chief Technology and Information Manager and the Business Development & Support Manager presented the report detailing the lessons learnt from the ICT transition to the new service provider, SCC, on expiration of the contract with Oxfordshire County Council.

In discussion the Committee noted the following points:

·                Dialogue with Oxfordshire County Council and National Computing Council about future options for the ICT service structure and delivery began in April 2014 and informed the contract tender process

·                Detailed planning for the transition began with SCC in the summer of 2015

·                All bidders had indicated that a 6 – 9 month timescale was reasonable for a transition of this size

·                SCC maintain a discrete client environment which means that the OCC assets/servers/applications are quite clearly distinguishable and readily extracted – this had not been the case with the County Council where the City Council assets had become closely meshed and integrated with those of the County Council

·                There has been no new capital expenditure on equipment as a result of the transition as the SCC service is on a “pay as you go basis”

·                A detailed ICT Service Improvement Plan was in place and subject to regular review

·                Officers were confident that the SCC contract offered greater flexibility and control for the Council

In response to questions the Head of Financial Services advised that there was an £150k per annum saving arising from the project and a one off implementation cost of around £900k. Both costs and income are accounted for immediately in the Councils accounts.

The Committee noted the report and requested that a further progress report should be submitted to the meetings on 14 December 2016 and again on 1 March 2017.

The Chair observed that the Chief Technology and Information Manager was leaving the Council and on behalf of the Committee wished him well in his future endeavours.