Agenda and draft minutes

To confirm the appointment of the Chair for the meeting.

In accordance with Section 10 of the Joint Committees Terms of Reference the chair rotates between the appointed members from each Council at each meeting.  As this meeting is being hosted by the London Borough of Lewisham the chair is therefore due to be appointed from their membership for this meeting.

RESOLVED that in accordance with Section 10 of the Joint Committee’s Terms of Reference Councillor Brenda Dacres (as representative of the hosting authority – London Borough of Lewisham) be appointed as Chair for the duration of the meeting.

Apologies for absence were received as follows:

London Borough of Brent - Councillors McLennan & Tatler with Councillor Krupa Sheth attending as substitute

London Borough of Lewisham – Councillors Bonavia & De Ryk with Councillor Dacres attending as substitute

London Borough of Southwark – Councillor Leeming

Members are invited to declare at this stage of the meeting, the nature and existence of any relevant disclosable pecuniary or personal interests in the items on this agenda and to specify the item(s) to which they relate.

There were no declarations of interests from Members.

To approve the minutes of the previous meeting of the Joint Committee held on Tuesday 20 February 2018 as a correct record.

It was RESOLVED that the minutes of the previous meeting of the Joint Committee of the London Boroughs of Brent, Lewisham and Southwark held on Tuesday 20 February 2018 be approved as a correct record.

No deputations or request to speak had been submitted by members of the public.

This report provides an update on the performance of 3-council ICT Shared Service established in November 2017.

Prod Sarigianis (Head of Digital Services, Brent Council) introduced the report to the Joint Committee updating Members on key performance areas in relation to the ICT Shared Service.

As a starting point, Prod Sarigianis provided an update on the levels of service disruption which had recently been experienced, with the reasons identified as follows:

·                The need to undertake a security review of the network which had resulted in a number of essential changes being made;

·                The need to deliver, within a shorter than usual timescale the replacement of all telephony services for Brent;

·                A series of outages caused by problems with the Virgin Media Business (VMB) link connecting the shared services datacentres.

Members noted that as a result of the above issues performance in relation to the volume of open calls and call resolution had significantly suffered which combined with the recent major outages affecting Brent & Lewisham had, it was recognised, raised concerns regarding the service.  A series of measure were now in the process of being implemented, designed to stabilise and improve the service moving forward.

In terms of detailed performance updates, Members noted the summary of key performance indicators for the service across all three Councils up to May 2018, which had been circulated with the update report.  The performance update had confirmed the increase in call volumes within Brent and Lewisham anticipated as part of the telephony rollout and also reflected the increase in number of open calls caused as a result of the various factors linked to the major service disruption already reported, which were currently in the process of being cleared.  This process had also created an impact in terms of reduced levels of call resolution within the required timescales.  Whilst noting the update provided Members were also advised that performance for June (not covered within the report) had shown significant levels of improvement with it anticipated that the backlog of open calls would have been addressed as part of the next monitor.

In terms of measures now being taken to address the concerns raised, Prod Sarigianis highlighted a number of service related actions on which further detail had been provided within section 3.10 of the report.  These had been based around a review of key processes and risk assessments designed to identify lessons learnt and mitigate against future reoccurrence.

The following comments and issues were highlighted by Members in relation to the service actions identified:

(a)       An update was sought on progress in addressing the outstanding issues experienced in relation to replacement of telephony services at Brent and Lewisham.  Prod Sarigianis advised that the main issue remained the reporting function available to the Customer Contact Centre and on which work was now being finalised to introduce a Performance Dashboard.

(b)       Further details were sought on the proposals being developed with the storage expert engaged from the network vendor around optimising systems and setting up more proactive performance alerts.  Prod Sarigianis advised that this would initially be based around development of an early warning system  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

No items have been identified in advance of the meeting.

No items were identified for consideration as requiring exclusion of the press and public.

There were no items of urgent business identified for consideration at the meeting.

The date of the next meeting is proposed for 6:30pm on Tuesday 16 October 2018 to be hosted at the London Borough of Brent.

RESOLVED that the next meeting of the Joint Boroughs IT Committee be confirmed for 6:30pm on Tuesday 16 October 2018 to be hosted by the London Borough of Brent.