Agenda item

To consider the attached report updating the ICT structure of the Council.

The ICT Manager, M Hassall, introduced the updating ICT report to the meeting. It was noted that over the past year they had focused on completing the ICT restructure and improving the basic ICT service that the team delivered. Seventeen colleagues had left the team, and 10 had joined. The team was now at capacity. 

A business partner model had been implemented with meetings held with each service area every month. This had led to better alignment of ICT services and service area requirements.

The team had implemented a service desk management tool that provided better visibility and management for incidents, changes and problems. They had facilitated the home and remote working for all colleagues across the council, and provided laptops, Microsoft teams, and BYOD support. This had been essential due to the Covid restrictions and the mandate for all colleagues to work from home if possible.

The accommodation project had required significant ICT resourcing and the team had been involved in aspects covering networking, AV, equipment fitting, resource booking systems and decanting of equipment.

Security of the system had remained good and they now had a new Disaster Recovery Solution which allowed services to be run from the cloud in case of total loss of on-site solutions. It was now time to move IT services to the Azure cloud and Initial assessments had been completed which supported the business case of moving to a hybrid cloud model initially.

Councillor Brookes noted that 17 staff had left, and they now had 10 new staff. Were the new staff on short term contract or full time? Councillors had also been having problems with their iPad, how could this be tackled. Also, backup to people who worked from home was mentioned. What extra work did this entail? M Hassall said that the new staff were in permanent roles. The team did have some agency support on a temporary basis, doing such things as covering the service desk. As for providing help for the iPads etc. we had a specialist in this but they were now broadening it out so that more than one person could help. They were mapping out a skills matrix to understand what they would need in the future. As for support for homeworkers there were some practical things that could be done such as showing people how to do certain things, however one of the problems was in contacting the people working from home.

Councillor Dorrell asked about the costs for the cloud, as he had recently seen that Microsoft had recently jacked up their prices for people already on their platform, how long were we locked into the current deal we were negotiating, and could we renegotiate it if needed. He was told that we had an enterprise agreement for three years with Microsoft, the costs would go up or down depending on how many people we had, because we pay ‘by seat’ so each person costs us more. But we also had projects which were evaluating all costs as ‘running costs’ and could be expensive. We would only move over services once we had understood the costs involved. But also not doing anything could prove to be very expensive as well. That was not to be recommended.

Councillor Sartin was concerned about by the large staff turnover over such a short space of time and asked what was happening that councillors were not aware of. As for accessing IT help it seemed a complicated process and seemed to take a long time in which to get help. Did it need to be that complex? M Hassall agreed that the numbers of staff turnover were quite high, but the roles were quite different and that the overall team size had moved from 35 down to 27. We also looked at the skills needed and wanted to broaden out each person’s skills, so they did not work in a silo. Also, some people took this as an opportunity to re-evaluate their careers and move on. As for access to IT help, they were working on process to make it simpler and would have another look at this, if it did not seem so straightforward. We always gave help as soon as possible in an emergency.  Councillor Sartin said that they would appreciate having a contact for emergencies. She was told that officers would investigate that.

*Subsequently M Hassall has added that in line with Councillor Kane’s comments we have removed a single named individual to call as this process had not been working. In case of emergencies with an ICT issue, members can ring the service desk directly on 01992 564888.

Councillor Rackham was also concerned about staffing and asked how many people who had left IT were retained in other jobs or took redundancy? Also, a lot of Councillors had problems with their iPads which was a concern. Was there a troubleshooting manual they could have? She was told that only two officers had moved into a new job. A manual was a good idea and officers hoped to put together some sort of guide.

Councillor Bassett asked why they chose Azure over AWS. And he was also concerned over the security of the network and bandwidth and resilience; had we done any work in this area in connection with the current changes taking place? M Hassall said that they chose Azure was because that although the costs were similar, we used a lot of Microsoft products already, so got more benefit from using this system. As for bandwidth in the new model, applications would go straight to Azure so it would be quicker without having to go into our servers in the Civic Centre. And once we were in Azure, we could easily increase our capacity.

Councillor Janet Whitehouse said that in her experience the ICT Helpdesk was just not working. She had experienced problems 10 days ago had not heard anything since. Could the officer who started an issue see it through to the end. She was told that processes were being put in so this would not happen. M Hassall would go back and investigate the Councillor’s issues. Councillor Whitehouse then asked if the officer could give their name when they contacted them, she did not like the anonymity. M Hassall said she would look into this.

*Subsequently M Hassall has added that she had looked into this and depending on what issues, it may require different people in the team to deal with it. Once the issue was assigned to an individual, it was normal practice for that person to follow it through, unless they were due to go on holiday or would be unavailable, then a colleague would pick up that issue.

A Small added that it was the case that ICT was just not meeting the needs of the Councillors and Officers, so a wholescale change was needed. It had been a large change, but services were now improving, and they were getting a lot of positive feedback. He was keen to make sure that members’ problems were addressed.

Councillor S Kane echoed Mr Small’s points, noted that a high amount of changes had taken place in IT and it needed people with different skill sets to do different jobs. We had now got the right people doing this work, revamping our systems and the new civic centre. Members were just a small part of this work. He had taken on board their suggestions and comments and were working very hard on member issues. It was his request to take away named officers and make it a corporate responsibility.

Councillor Murray said that he could only access his councillor email address on his iPad. Could he access it on other devices? He was told that he could be set up on other devices and that someone would contact him about this.

Resolved:

That the Select Committee to considered and commented on the ICT update report.