Meeting documents

Members will have the opportunity to provide feedback to the Cabinet Member and the Joint Strategic Director for Information Assets & Digital Development on the draft new technology strategy for 2018-2020, entitled the ‘Smarter Bucks Strategy’, before it is considered by Cabinet in December 2018.

Contributors:

Mr John Chilver, Cabinet Member for Resources

Ms Balvinder Heran, Joint Strategic Director – Information Assets & Digital Development

Mr Tony Ellis, Chief Information Officer

Mr Ben Unsworth, Head of Digital

Mr Matt Sanford, ICT Solution Owner – Security

Papers:

Report and strategy attached.

The Chairman welcomed Mr John Chilver, Cabinet Member for Resources, Ms Sarah Ashmead, Executive Director, Resources, Ms Balvinder Heran, Joint Strategic Director, Information Assets and Digital Development, Mr Tony Ellis, Chief Information Officer and Mr Ben Unsworth, Head of Digital to the meeting.

The Cabinet Member for Resources explained that the new Smart Bucks Strategy was a refreshed technology strategy for 2018-2020 and he was very happy that a full leadership team was now in place to deliver it.

Ms Heran provided an overview of the main themes of the strategy.  During the presentation and in response to subsequent Member questions the following main points were noted:

• This two year strategy build on the success of the previous one and the priority remained improving public access for residents and progressing with digital services.
• Ms Heran’s post worked jointly across the Integrated Care System (ICS) i.e. Health and the County Council, due to its social care responsibilities.  Her aspiration was for residents to be able to use one account to access both Council and Health services.  This would be supported by a single network which would be accessible to staff at the Council, in Health and in the voluntary sector and the right infrastructure to improve mobile working, with staff equipped with the equipment which was most appropriate for their job role.  This would also require training to be delivered to upskill staff.
• All ICT contracts were being reviewed to ensure value for money and to investigate collaboration with suppliers who could support the aspiration to integrate.  There would also be opportunities to achieve economies of scale through contracting jointly with Health, for example, for mobile phone contracts.
• Members were reassured that whilst the ICT leadership team were all relatively new in post they had all reviewed the strategy which had already been developed.  After some changes, they were happy to endorse and deliver it.  Figures for capital investment for ICT were being reviewed in light of the strategy and the new ICT and Digital Board, chaired by the Cabinet Member for Resources would oversee the delivery.
• The Strategy would be supported by a mixed economy, using the cloud in some circumstances but also retaining a data centre.  Software was being reviewed to identify duplication and what might need replacing.  The Chief Information Officer explained that he was working closely with partners such as Microsoft to ensure a robust approach and he had looked at best practice elsewhere to help inform choices for the future.
• A Member praised the challenging vision of the ICT Leadership team but questioned whether the Council was capable of delivering it, especially as there had been a number of recent issues with network access for staff.  In response, Ms Heran commented that it was vital that ICT was fast, reliable and resilient for both staff and residents. The focus of the current ICT Improvement Plan was to tackle the limitations of the legacy environment, by replacing hardware and the ICT and Digital Board would provide strong governance around the management of new ICT projects.
• Members asked about the impact of the recent Unitary announcement, which could result in additional systems currently used by district councils having to be reconciled with systems used at county level.  Ms Ashmead, Executive Director for Resources advised the Committee that until the new governance arrangements for the transition to Unitary were agreed it was difficult to plan, but it was anticipated that an IT workstream would be an urgent consideration.

The Chairman thanked all contributors for attending the meeting and it was noted that Ms Heran was willing to provide a further update to Committee in future if required.