Issue - meetings
Internal Audit Progress Report
Meeting: 21/10/2021 - Audit and Risk Management Committee (Item 89)
89 INTERNAL AUDIT PROGRESS REPORT 
PDF 612 KB
Additional documents:
- Appendix A - Priority 1 List, item 89
PDF 23 KB
- Appendix B1 - Risk Assessment Guidance, item 89
PDF 62 KB
- Appendix B2 - Corporate Risk Register, item 89
PDF 144 KB
- Appendix B3 - Adult Care and Health Risk Register, item 89
PDF 148 KB
- Appendix B4 - Children Education and Families Risk Register, item 89
PDF 148 KB
- Appendix B5 - Corporate Services Risk Register, item 89
PDF 133 KB
- Appendix B6 - Environment and Public Protection Risk Register, item 89
PDF 135 KB
- Appendix B7 - Finance Risk Register, item 89
PDF 131 KB
- Appendix B8 - Housing Planning and Regeneration Risk Register, item 89
PDF 180 KB
- Appendix B9 - Human Resources and Customer Services Risk Register, item 89
PDF 94 KB
- Appendix C - Waivers April 2021 to September 2021, item 89
PDF 83 KB
Minutes:
FSD21058
At the previous meeting, an update had been received concerning the ongoing issues regarding the possibility of a power failure to the data centre. As this had been ongoing and a matter of concern for some time, a further update had been requested for this meeting. To this end Vinit Shukle (Assistant Director for IT Services) attended the meeting in person, whilst Sara Bowrey (Director of Housing, Planning and Regeneration) and Mike Watkins( Assistant Director for Strategic Property) attended by conference call.
The Director of Housing, Planning and Regeneration informed the Committee that a firm date had now been arranged for all contractors to attend on site to finally resolve the issue. This had been confirmed for the weekend commencing Friday, November 26—that would be when all the back-up work would take place. Work on replacing the switch would take place over the weekend of 27th-28th, with the system being back up and running on Monday 29th November. The Oracle financial system would need to be tested on Monday 29th due to the availability of a specialist contractor.
The Assistant Director for Strategic Property acknowledged Member frustration and outlined the difficulties that had had been experienced when attempting to arrange for multiple contractors to be available on site at the same time.
A Member asked if a roll back plan was ready if the work planned for that weekend failed. The Assistant Director for IT Services responded and said that data backups would be taken initially--prior to the work being handed over to the Facilities Team. If the contractors encountered difficulties and felt that the work was going to fail, then the Council would be alerted and the Data Centre back up would be reinstated.
A Member commented that although it was good that the matter was now hopefully coming to a successful conclusion, Members should not forget the history of the issue and stop asking questions. It was important to understand why this matter had taken so long to resolve, so that steps could be taken to ensure that it did not happen ever again. The Member also queried as to whether or not there were other vulnerable parts in the system that could cause similar problems to the Council in the future.
The Assistant Director for Strategic Property responded to the question as to why the matter had taken so long to resolve. He said that historically this was an old piece of kit and that no one had really understood its criticality. No one in the past had really taken time to consider properly what would happen if the system failed. It had also been the case historically that the Council had not benefited from having access to all of the relevant specifications of the UPS. Resultantly, a shutdown had been required to look at specifications, parts and methodology.
Another contributing factor had been the poor service that had been received from Amey who were the previous Facilities Management contractor. After dispensing ... view the full minutes text for item 89