This item will include a Presentation
Minutes:
The Committee received a presentation by the Head of Corporate Services on the emerging Digital Strategy which would be considered by Cabinet in November.
It was reported that the work leading up to the strategy undertaken as part of the innovation programme had investigated the systems map for the Council, and developed a set of key principles to improve customer experience and efficiency and support cost reduction. The Digital Strategy carried through these principles and set out our ambitions to support the services to transform and realise the power of digitalisation. A cloud readiness assessment has been undertaken and this has demonstrated that significant revenue savings could be made in migrating to cloud based systems over traditional models of upfront investment in ICT. It was also noted that bringing IT support in house has already created efficiencies within the ICT revenue budget, and further use of cloud could extend these savings further.
The Committee agreed to keep the Innovation Task Group and allow them to continue their work in testing new systems as their feedback had been invaluable especially with the implementation of the Green Waste Subscription service. It was reported that the year two subscription notifications were currently being planned.
It was discussed that it would be intended to move to Cloud based systems and this raised concerns with Committee Members around security and data protection. It was reported that the system providers had their own teams of security specialists and were providing high levels of security to other customers which include banks and government departments. This dedicated and highly trained round the clock monitoring and support would far outweigh any local protections that could be put in place The Committee noted that security requirements were written into the contracts. When asked, it was reported that a cyber security audit had taken place for all the Council’s systems and any issues raised had been addressed. Along with this, penetration testing had also taken place for key systems and any known holes had been closed. Members requested further details of the complete Strategy and security testing results.
Productivity and savings were then discussed and it was reported that the cash savings would potentially only be achieved through switching off or reducing other channels as we move to more digital means. The committee were advised that the Digital strategy provided the environment and systems to enable change and the effective management of data but the realisation of efficiencies as a result of those improvements would be made from reviewing processes as part of the fast reviews in the Fit for the Future programme as these costs sat within service budgets and not ICT spend.
It was asked if other local authorities could be invited to share the use of LDCs systems and it was reported that some current systems and contracts would have to be revised to enable this. As part of the Fit for the Future programme fundamental reviews will consider where services can be delivered and these assessments would include a review of core systems including the Revenues and Benefits processing system, which is due for procurement review in 2019. Members were advised that the introduction of online forms in Revenues and Benefits was paid for via funding from the LGA to increase digital access to the service and the roll out of the forms had gone very well
Legacy data was then considered and it was noted that if it was on a server and not maintained, there would be a cost to access it for systems that we no longer intend to use. It was noted that this is a consideration of all projects to only retain access to information we have a right to keep and intention to use. An example was given of work being done through the IDOX project to migrate legacy planning data from the existing document management system (DMS) to the new DMS. It was also reported that as part of the ending of the ICT support contract an Information Manager post had been created to ensure the curation and effective use of all data and information in the Council going forward.
RESOLVED: That the information received be noted and points raised be noted by Cabinet.