Agenda item

To follow

Report CSD18176

The Executive considered proposals for a major refresh of the IT infrastructure that supported the Council’s core IT and key business systems, partly due to the cessation of support by several manufacturers during the next few years. The report set out the risks and the changes required to ensure that the Council retained a significant number of critical infrastructure platforms. Service departments had been closely involved with developing the strategy to ensure that business systems could operate using Windows 10; solutions would be established in the few cases where systems were currently incompatible.

The report had been scrutinised by the Executive, Resources and Contracts PDS Committee at its meeting on 22^nd November 2018 and the Committee had supported the proposals, subject to recommending in addition that in the next phase of work consideration should be given to how IT transformation could be used to improve services, improve the lives of staff in terms of flexible and home working, and deliver reduced costs, and to agree that all options concerning WAN and LAN connections should be considered further. The Committee had also requested further information on the cost of Office 2019. Confidential information on these issues had been circulated by the Head of ICT since the PDS meeting; this showed that for Bromley the SD-WAN approach offered no advantages over MPLS networks. The Chairman of the Executive, Resources and Contracts PDS Committee repeated his concerns and urged that the Council should take a more radical approach.

The Resources, Commissioning and Contract Management Portfolio Holder confirmed that the proposals developed with BT had been supported by Gartner, a leading independent research and advisory company, and moving to a cloud-based approach would enhance disaster recovery capability. He assured Members that the project would be overseen by a board that would include himself and the director of Corporate Services, and there would be regular reports to PDS.

The Executive concluded that the additional information circulated after the PDS meeting provided reassurance that the MPLS approach was correct for Bromley, but they accepted the PDS recommendation about using the next phase of work to improve services and enhance mobile and flexible working.

RESOLVED that

(1) The ICT strategy attached as Appendix 1 to the report be endorsed.

(2) The information provided be noted, and the procurement of End of Life (EoL) IT infrastructure and the proposed work to be undertaken to upgrade and replace the platforms as set out in this report be agreed.

(3) Council be recommended to approve the addition of £5.381m to the Capital Programme to undertake the delivery of the ICT transformation project between 2019 and 2022, funded from a total reduction of £1.925m to existing IT capital schemes, and £3.5m set aside in the Technology Fund earmarked reserve from underspends in 2018/19.

(4) A hybrid approach of ‘on premise’ and cloud IT infrastructure be agreed to facilitate the upgrade requirements as detailed in paragraph 3.6.7 of the report.

(5) The Director of Corporate Services be given delegated authority in consultation with the Resources, Commissioning and Contract Management  Portfolio Holder to agree the cloud or 3^rd party cloud solution, as needed for Disaster Recovery (DR) and for Business Continuity (BC).

(6) The use of the Westminster Pan-London Framework be agreed and the current service provider, BT, be utilised to deliver the upgrade and procure the services and supplies detailed in the report; where, in the opinion of the Director of Corporate Services, a separate procurement is required or desirable,  authority be delegated to the  Director of Corporate Services, in consultation with the Resources, Commissioning and Contract Management Portfolio Holder, to use an appropriate framework or alternative procurement route.

(7) The creation of up to 3 FTE temporary posts be approved if required to support, coordinate and manage the delivery of the projects for a period of 27 months, as set out in paragraph 3.7.1 of the report.

(8) It is agreed that any future development costs for systems will be funded from the Capital Programme, as and when new system development is required, enabling revenue savings of £170k to reduce the growth.

(9) Additional net growth be agreed of £92k for 2018/19 and £394k per annum from 2019/20 to cover the licensing, support and system running costs.

(10) It is noted that, as set out in paragraph 3.6.59 of the report, it is estimated that a further £250k may be required to undertake the reviews of the line of business systems and the potential replacement costs for those line of business systems could be up to £5m in the next three years.

(11) It is agreed that in the next phase of work consideration should be given to how IT transformation could be used to improve services, improve the lives of staff in terms of flexible and home working and deliver reduced costs.