Agenda item

(To receive a report from David Matthewman, Chief Information Officer, which invites the Board to consider the proposals for the future IT service delivery model, prior to consideration by the Executive on 3 April 2024. The views of the Board will be passed on to the Executive as part of its consideration of this report)

Consideration was given to a report by the Chief Information Officer, which invited the Board to consider and support a report on the Future IT Service Delivery Model.  The Board was invited to consider and comment on the report prior to consideration by the Executive on 3 April 2024.

The Board was advised that the current IT contract was due to expire in March 2026.  Previously, the Executive had approved an overall IT Service Delivery Model and sourcing approach at its meeting on 4 May 2022.  However, procurement activity was subsequently paused to give the Council time to assess options to rectify a number of risks and issues identified in the second half of 2022.  As a result of this assessment, changes have been made to the design of the original IT Service Delivery Model in order to address the risks and issues that had been identified.

During discussion, the following points were noted:

·       It was confirmed that the proposal was for a long term model, potentially with a contract time frame of five years, plus three extensions of up to two years, to a maximum of 11 years.  The importance of selecting partners who could work with the Council for a long term such as this was highlighted. 

·       The proposed model would give the Council access to more providers than a procurement for a single-source provider.

·       The Board was advised of the importance of ‘right-sizing’ the relationships so that the contract ‘means something’ for the provider; and of accessing organisations who would be able to innovate and respond to change to meet the Council's needs, and also to advise the Council on improvements, in turn improving frontline services.

·       Concerns were raised regarding whether there was a ‘plan B’ in the event of a failure of IT suppliers.  The Board was advised that managing the risk of a need for a plan ‘B’ would be achieved by continuing to undertake market engagement work, in order to get a range of responses from a broad range of suppliers; by undertaking appropriate due diligence on any company that the Council planned to work with, including their track record, financial sustainability, and references from existing clients.

·       It was noted that there was a need for the right balance in the services that the Council would include in the procurement, as well as understanding the Council’s services.  The Council would also need to be in a good position to move to another supplier, if that were to become necessary.

·       The Council had invested in combating state-sponsored and criminal threats to the Council’s IT systems, which were always evolving.  The Board was advised that the Council had recruited a head of cybersecurity for the first time. This would allow more focus on this activity, with state-of-the-art tools to identify and tackle issues. 

·       The Council had also invested in the updating of legacy systems, so their level of protection against threats had been improved.

RESOLVED

1.    That the recommendations to the Executive, as set out in Appendix A to the report, be supported unanimously.

2.    That a summary of the comments made be passed to the Executive as part of its consideration of the report.