Agenda item

(To receive a report from John Wickens (Chief Digital Officer), which provides an update on the progress made against key IMT-related transformation and transactional projects being undertaken by Serco and other third party suppliers)

Consideration was given to a report which provided an update to the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board (OSMB) on the progress made against key IMT – related transformation and transactional projects being undertaken by Serco, and other third party suppliers.    Page 15 of the report set out those projects which had been completed since the last report.

Members were provided with an opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained within the report and some of the points raised during discussion included the following:

·         In relation to the open text migration project, it was queried when it was likely that the status of the project would move from red to green, and how far behind the project was.  The Board was advised that the project was about three weeks behind target and that the impact of this would carry on for another three to four weeks.  However, it was noted that this was due to a delay in getting the technical resource from the vendor.  In terms of impact, the Council would continue to use the existing platform for longer than planned as some compatibility issues had been identified with Office 365.  Officers were exploring ways to resolve the outstanding issues.

·         It was queried whether the Council was incurring any additional costs due to the delay to the introduction of Open Text Migration. It was acknowledged that there were some associated costs, but the delay had been caused by a third party.  The costs were mainly in terms of resources from the extension of the project.

·         It was queried whether the makers of the software were getting any benefit from the changes requested by the authority to integrate the Confirm Highways System, and it was noted that this was a bespoke system that was developed specifically for LCC.

·         It was queried what 'Planned Stage Boundary' referred to in terms of project impact, and members were advised that this meant the project manager required information from third parties.

·         In relation to the conversion to Windows 10 software, it was commented that after the automatic updates were installed there seemed to be a slowing down of the computer, and it was queried whether all of the new computers and laptops being issued to staff would have the automatic updates function switched on.  Members were advised that it had been possible to defer release of the updates until they had been tested but Microsoft's update-release strategy meant the updates would automatically update eventually.

·         In relation to the Corporate Card Payments project on page 16 of the report, it was queried what the 'other modern methods' referred to, and it was also highlighted that the customer not present transactions held a lot of risk and it was also queried whether customers would also be able to pay by credit card online.  It was noted that there were agreements with different card processors to enable online payments in addition to the one for card holder present and contactless payments.  Those departments which were planning on enabling card payments would have done their own due diligence in terms of risk.

·         Members were advised that due diligence around compliance with procurement regulations had been carried out.  It was also queried how this was being risk managed.  Members were advised that all projects carried a risk log, and if a risk was significant it would go into the departmental log. If it was still considered significant it would be included within the corporate log.

·         In relation to the project dashboards on page 19 of the report, it was queried what the forecast closure date was and the forecast/actual delivery date. It was noted that these were project technicalities, and the closure date would be when the project was finished and fully closed down from a commercial aspect. The Forecast/ Actual Delivery Date applied to the next milestone name on that line.

·         It was highlighted that the exception reporting would focus on those projects which were listed as red or amber; however, reports would continue to include the other projects, despite being green, as members may still have questions about these projects.

·         It was confirmed that completed projects were green, and it was considered that it was useful to show these as it highlighted what had been achieved.  Members agreed that they were happy to leave the reporting as it was.

·         The Board expressed their thanks to John Wickens and his team for the work they had done.

RESOLVED

1.    That the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board note the performance of the Corporate Support Services Contract, and the performance of other project related contracts.

2.    That the highlighted 20 IMT projects be noted.

3.    That the proposal for IMT to report by exception for future OSMB reports be supported.