Agenda item

(Director of Resources) to consider the attached report and receive a short presentation.

The Assistant Director ICT, Dave Newton and the ICT Operations Manager, Stephen Bacon gave a joint presentation on the draft Technology Strategy for 2018-2023. The strategy was due to be presented to the Cabinet on 9^th November.

They outlined the following overall Vision and Purpose:

Their vision was for a great place where people enjoy living, working, learning and leisure.

Their purpose was to work together to serve the community.

Within the Corporate Plan 2018-2023 were the following objectives, the latter of which was most relevant to ICT and as such was shown in detail:

·         Stronger communities

·         Stronger place –

·         Stronger Council – A culture of innovation,

·         Enhancing skills and flexibility of our workforce

·         Improving performance through innovation and new technology

·         Efficient use of our financial resources, buildings and assets

·         Working with commercial partners to add value for our customers

They were preparing for April next year when Transformation starts and part of this was that they were losing their training room and would be using the Council Chamber instead. They were also preparing for a possible decamp from this building. The Condor building had spare capacity and could be used to house more staff. The Airfield and Hemnal Street on the other hand may prove problematic. Councillor S Kane added that they would need to make sure that the staff would have homeworking capabilities as some people would need this initially. Mr Bacon noted that the laptop security prevents this at present, but they were looking at different ways that could enable this. To support this they would be asking the Cabinet to purchase 550 new laptops  for everyone. They were also looking at the internet set up and working closely with BT.

Councillor Dorrell asked if encouraging officers in buying their own devices had been considered. Mr Newton said that there had been a lot of resistance to this, and it posed a lot of technical difficulties, such as connectivity, having different laptops connecting to our network. It was more sensible to go with the same device for each person. All the laptops will be encrypted.

Councillor Mohindra asked if there would be provision for Councillors to connect to the EFDC site. Mr Bacon said they could already do this with mobile devices that have been set up by IT.

Mr Bacon continued that the council was now looking at accommodation for the new staff structure, they were presently looking at the capabilities of the ICT team.

He noted that more intensive use will be made of the new building at the Civic Office complex. Outside of office accommodation, ICT were proposing the following changes to their accommodation requirements:

·         Low cost Multipurpose refit of Council Chamber to allow easier use for Training, including ICT Training.

·         Release of current ICT Training Room to provide capacity for other uses.

·         Migration to cloud based servers to release server room accommodation.

It was also observed that ICT security would be a challenge; there would be  a full scale review of the security set up starting in January ready for April.

Councillor Patel  asked how often was homeworking work backed up. He was told that the homeworkers would be connected to the council’s network and so it would be automatically backed up. If a standalone device was used then we would ask them to back it up whenever they could. Councillor Patel wondered if this could be written into the officer’s contract.

Councillor Bassett asked if they have someone to do penetration testing. He was told that they already carried out this type of testing.  Councillor Bassett then asked if the council had various back up and disaster scenarios and was told that they were looking into this. Councillor Mohindra commented that everything we spent money on should be future proofed.

Councillor Kane asked if there would be any printing provision made for remote workers. He was told no, there wouldn’t be.

Councillor Sunger had it confirmed to him that all the laptops would be maintained and insured.

ICT support would be improved, there would be return to base support, the helpdesk would be open from 8am to 6pm as people would be working outside the normal 9 to 5 hours, their working hours would be spread over the day.

Officers would be able to work from any EFDC office. This building and satellite offices would be made as resilient as possible which would include power back up. They would also be updating the wireless system as the old one was now seven years old.

The Council will be moving to office 365, which was more flexible than windows. Councillor Whitehouse asked that as this would come from a small supplier, what would happen if it went wrong. Mr Bacon said that they were looking to get the best value systems that they could and were also looking at alternative systems and their costs. They were looking to the long term strategy for 5 to 7 years to enable the payoff for this change.

Mr Bacon continued that they were also looking for a data platform based on integration, sharing and transparency. They were looking to link the council’s systems together  to enable staff to easily access and analyse the data that we held across our service areas.

Councillor Mohindra asked if we could commercialise the data that we held. He was told that it could be done but there were no plans as yet to do this.

It was noted that EFDC staff would be able to use Skype for business calls and meetings; have virtual meetings and use a type of business facebook. The flexible working hardware  would be ready for next year.  ICT was there to enable staff to deliver services to customers, to do this better.

Councillor Bedford agreed that the customer was the most important person; would there be video conferencing calls enabled for customers to speak to specialist staff. He was told that that they could put it in satellite offices.

Councillor Whitehouse asked about the new data protection act (GDPR) coming in. he was told that this was being looked at by the Council’s Data Protection Board.

Councillor Hughes noted that the proposed customer access was great, but what about the people with no computer. Mr Bacon said that they would still have the old channels of communication available for them to use.

Councillor Bedford noted that laptops have about a five year lifespan. Could you look at phasing in the purchase of the new laptops say a percentage  bought every two years. He was told that this new way of working had to be done all at once as it was all happening at the same time.

The meeting wanted to inform all members via the Council Bulletin that this strategy would e going to the next Cabinet meeting on 9^th November.

RESOLVED:

1)    That the draft Technology Strategy for 2018 to 2023 be noted; and

2)    That members be reminded via the Council Bulletin that it would be going to the Cabinet meeting on 9^th November 2017 for agreement.