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 Brent the practice is for the chair 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 Margaret McLennan (as representative of the hosting authority – London Borough of Brent) be appointed as Chair for the duration of the meeting.

An apology for absence was received from Councillor Amanda De Ryk (London Borough of Lewisham) with no substitute member attending.

An apology for lateness was received from Councillor Stephanie Cryan (London Borough of Southwark).

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 interest from Members.

To approve the minutes of the previous meeting of the Joint Committee held on Wednesday 4 July 2018 as a correct record.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the previous meeting of the Joint Committee of the London Boroughs of Brent, Lewisham and Southwark held on Wednesday 4 July 2018 be approved as a correct record.

No deputations or requests to speak were submitted by members of the public.

This report provides an update on the performance of three Borough 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, a general update was provided which highlighted:

·           a reduction in level of critical service disruptions sine the last meeting, although it had been recognised that further improvements in service stability were still required.

·           The volume of open calls remaining high with a lower level of call resolution performance.

·           Ongoing delay in the datacentre migration project for Southwark.

Members noted that as a result of the issues identified, work was now in progress to develop and implement an initial service improvement plan for the shared service which had been detailed in Appendix B of the report.

In terms of detailed performance updates, Members noted the summary of key performance indicators for the service across all three Councils up to October 2018, which had been circulated as Appendix A of the update report.  The performance update had confirmed the increase in call volumes across all three Councils alongside a reduction in call resolution performance which had commenced during the telephony rollouts for Brent and Lewisham.  There were a number of issues that it was felt had impacted on business-as-usual performance, which Members were advised the Service Improvement Plan had been designed to address.  These included:

·                the level of interim staff employed by the service and vacancies to be filled;

·                management of staff and delivery of the business-as-usual service;

·                the distinction between and management of business-as-usual and project work;

The following comments and issues were highlighted by Members in relation to the performance update provided:

(a)       concerns were highlighted on performance in relation to Lewisham given not only the level of calls being logged but also the overall level of customer satisfaction, with further details sought on the reasons.  Prod Sarigianis advised that the satisfaction scores provided were based on a standard set of performance measures and whilst recognising the reduced satisfaction levels for Lewisham highlighted these were now improving.  He advised that details were available, if required, on the measurements used as the basis of the satisfaction score but noted that the key factor often related to stability of the service.

This was a factor supported by Councillor Bonavia who highlighted the impact which recent outages to systems operated by Lewisham had had on levels of satisfaction, especially as it was perceived these had taken longer to resolve than outages affecting either Brent or Southwark.  By way of clarifying the position, Prod Sarigianis advised that the recent outages had created significant disruption for Brent and also Lewisham in relation specifically to their CRM system.  The incident had been linked to the problems being experienced with the relevant datacentre links, which were now in the process of being addressed.

(b)     Councillor Paschoud highlighted additional concerns relating to the impact of recent outages affecting Lewisham in relation to the IDOX and LGS applications and sought details on whether these type of issues  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To receive and consider a discussion paper relating to the joint management of the Shared ICT Service.

The Joint Committee received a discussion paper, presented by Councillor Cryan (on behalf of London Borough of Southwark), which members were advised had been prepared to encourage further consideration around management options for ongoing delivery of the Shared ICT Service.

Whilst highlighting that Southwark remained committed to the Shared Service, a number of challenges had been highlighted in respect of the following areas:

·                delivery of both ICT project and business as usual requirements, although it was recognised that some of these were related to legacy and investment issues;

·                the perception that the service was being defined and delivered by Brent rather than as a shared endeavour;

·                the current operating model’s capacity (including structure, governance and processes) to operate at the scale now required to serve three local authorities.

Whilst members were agreed that the delivery of a strong and successful shared ICT service remained critical to all three of the boroughs, the Joint Committee was being asked to consider a number of questions regarding how best to manage the service moving forward in order to address the challenges identified.  These included:

·                how best to create and maintain independence in terms of management of the shared service – including the proposal to appoint a Managing Director to lead the service independent of the three member authorities accountable to a Joint Management Committee;

·                how best to address the current management capacity issues within the service;

·                how best to address the wider service capacity issues across the service – including the potential appointment of technical architects by each authority;

·                how best to start the improvement process – including (as outlined under the previous item) delivery of the Service Improvement Plan.

The paper was then opened up for discussion with the following comments raised:

(a)       members recognised the challenges identified as a basis for the paper, given the critical nature of the service in underpinning each Council’s digital transformation strategy and driving service improvements for residents and in delivering performance improvement and associated efficiency savings.  Whilst it was felt that the Service Improvement Plan represented the start of a process, in principle support was expressed towards further consideration and development of the proposals within the discussion paper.

In order to move the process forward members felt that further consideration would need to be given to the detailed arrangements in terms of timescales, resources and operating structure prior to any final proposals being presented for approval.

(b)       In terms of the background to the proposed technical architect solution for each Council members were advised that the proposal was aimed at addressing the current capacity to link and co-ordinate technology decisions between authorities and integrate with the enterprise architecture component of the shared service.  Whilst recognising that some solutions would require a more localised approach, members were supportive of the proposed concept, subject to a more detailed definition of the role being developed, as a means of ensuring that technical requirements being identified to address business needs were subject to the necessary assessment and approval process.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

No items have been identified in advance of the meeting.

No items were identified for consideration that required the exclusion of the press and public.

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

To confirm the date and venue for the next meeting.

RESOLVED that the next meeting of the Joint Borough IT Committee be confirmed for 6:30pm on Tuesday 5 March 2019 to be hosted by the Lonfon Borough of Southwark.

Members noted that if required, additional meeting(s) would be scheduled prior to that date in order to update on progress with the review of shared service management arrangements.