Agenda item
Update Report to the ICT Shared Service for the London Boroughs of Brent, Lewisham and Southwark
This report provides an update on the performance of the Shared ICT Service.
Minutes:
Prior to commencing consideration of the main report the Chair took the opportunity to thank the Shared Service for its partnership work and support in resolving a recent issue affecting a key payment system in Lewisham.
Fabio Negro (Managing Director of Shared Service) then introduced the report to the Joint Committee updating members on key performance areas in relation to the Shared ICT Service (STS):
Members noted the summary of key performance management indicators for the service across all three Councils, which had been included within Appendix A of the update report. In terms of detailed service performance, the Joint Committee were advised that since the last meeting in March 2022:
· During the 4-month period (March 2022 to June 2022) call volumes had been recorded between 6,000 - 6,500 tickets per month, which compared with 7,000 - 7,500 tickets per month in the previous reporting period. Open calls in STS operational queues now stood at 2,500 compared with approximately 3,350 at the end of the previous reporting period with the STS continuing to work towards reducing the number of operational open tickets to 1,000 – 1,500 which it was felt represented an appropriate level for the size of the supported user base.
· In terms of tickets logged with the STS these had totalled 53,136 tickets between March and June 2022 which represented an average of 13,284 tickets per month. This compared to 72,730 in the previous reporting period, (September 2021 to February 2022). These tickets consisted of both service requests and issues, with members noting the breakdown of tickets logged as detailed within section 3.7 of the report.
· Since the last meeting of the Joint Committee, 10 Priority 1 incidents had been logged of which nine had been resolved within Service Level Agreement (SLA). This compared to 12 Priority 1 incidents over the previous 6 month reporting period. There were also 10 non STS related P1s resolved by local applications teams within the respective councils, eight of which were within SLA.
· Priority 2 and Priority 3 issues within STS queues have seen an average of 64% and 61% compliance with the SLA from March - June 2022 (against 53% and 57% reported for the previous period). This represented a further improvement in terms of P2 and P3 SLA performance with the trend expected to continue as work continued to further reduce the open call backlog. A breakdown of the top seven categories for P2 and P3 calls had been provided within section 3.13 - 3.14 of the report. Priority 4 service requests within STS queues for this reporting period had a 70% compliance with the SLA, compared with 66% reported during the previous monitoring period.
· The Net Promoter Score (NPS) industry standard rating for service user experience had achieved a positive rating in relation to STS performance across all three Council partners of 62.6% for calls resolved in STS operational queues (compared to 50.1% in the previous period). This had been supported by the successful trial and roll out of the IT Hub’s and queuing/drop-in centres alongside the ongoing development and refinement of the Hornbill customer portal including the expansion by licensing the asset management modules.
Fabio Negro then moved on to provide an update on the progress made in relation to Cyber Security across the Shared Service. In noting the update provided within sections 3.27 – 3.40 of the report, the Board were informed there no serious cyber security issues had been logged during the latest monitoring period. Work also continued with a third party recommended by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to proactively monitor the environment across all three boroughs. The number of incidents reported by the STS security partner had dropped to two over the reporting period and on investigation neither of these incidents had involved malicious activity.
Members were advised that due to the ongoing situation in Ukraine and increase in cyber-attacks, NCSC were continuing to provide advice on these heightened risks. Whilst assuring members of the measures in place and ongoing monitoring and review a number of additional actions had also been introduced, which included:
· actively monitoring access logs to IT systems both on Premise and Cloud;
· accelerating planned IT Roadmap items (via Proof of Concept and Trial phases) for continuous network monitoring & endpoint monitoring and management.
· contacting IT suppliers to verify that they were not exposed to higher risks during this situation;
· using the Information Security for London (ISfL) and Warning, Advice & Reporting Groups to ascertain how others were also reacting to the situation;
· working with the partners on auditing their external internet facing websites, to reduce unwanted external services;
· engaging with the STS security vendors to ensure that security appliances were configured to industry best practice;
· building up data obtained from audits, penetration tests, and continuous scans to gain a base line of STS posture and using these sources to develop a Cyber Improvement Plan.
In terms of other specific updates, members noted:
· The ongoing programme of work to update security controls and harden infrastructure across all three authorities which had included the deployment of tools to aid both vulnerability management and patching across the server estate as well as work to develop and deploy Microsoft endpoint protection to the laptop estate in order to maintain a compliance baseline on all devices.
· The ongoing focus on the Respond and Recover area, given the importance of offline backups in the case of any ransomware incident, with the Rubrik backup solution now covering the vast majority of the council on premise workloads plus those Office 365 components migrated to the cloud (email, OneDrive, Teams and SharePoint) and strong performance in relation to backup compliance rates, which also now included Lewisham Homes.
· The ongoing work being undertaken by STS in conjunction with their mail filtering partner, to monitor and address potential malicious email activity, which remained a primary source of concern.
· In terms of Public Service Network (PSN) compliance, it was noted that Brent had recently received their PSN compliance certificate with Lewisham a;sp close to being certified as compliant. Further work was being undertaken following a health check submission in relation to Southwark, which had identified issues in relation to their legacy estate. Whilst not impacting on service delivery, members were advised of the further work being undertaken in order to address the issues highlighted with the aim to eventually move to towards full Cyber Essentials accreditation. Whilst this had been achieved within Brent, work was ongoing in relation to progressing Lewisham’s accreditation and Southwark in the process of undertaking an initial Cyber Essentials gap analysis following their migration to the cloud.
The Joint Committee then moved on to note the update provided in respect of Continuous Service Improvement within sections 3.41 – 3.42 of the report. Members noted the work undertaken to successfully launch a modernised & simplified web portal and to auto-route calls to the appropriate application support team at each Council in order to reduce the level of manual intervention needed, with the new platform now able to provide more flexibility in terms of user experience design following its process of continuous improvement since launch. Other key initiatives currently on which continued included a planned change to the user password policy across all three Councils, to align policy with National Cyber Security Centre advice, piloting the use of chatbots as a signpost to support and guidance for users and development of a service for Android users.
In relation to the Audits involving STS, members noted the details provided on the audits which had been undertaken across all three authorities during 2020/21 along with progress on delivery of the recommended actions identified, as detailed within section 3.43 – 3.46 of the report.
Moving on, Fabio Negro then provided an update on the progress made in relation to the Technology Road Map with the business case for the Compute and Storage Infrastructure replacement having been completed and project initiated and business case approved for an Asset Management solution.
In terms of other updates, the Joint Committee noted:
· The ongoing progress being made in terms of the model for delivery of IT infrastructure support services to Lewisham Homes, as detailed with sections 3.51 – 3.55 of the report, with their datacentre IT infrastructure having successfully transferred to the STS Brent and Croydon datacentres at the end of March 2022 and now fully supported by the STS and end-user IT support being provided since April 2022.
· The project and procurement updates provided within section 3.56 – 3.61 of the report. In terms of projects, 60 in-flight projects had now been identified across Brent, Lewisham and Southwark. These included upgrades to Web and Application Firewalls, progress with the cloud migration programme, ongoing roll out of Officer 365 across Brent & Lewisham and replacement wifi with the number of pipeline projects continuing to increase as a result of increased demand for technical resources.
· The development of new capacity with STS to manage the starters, movers and leavers process, as detailed within section 3.62 of the report.
· The details provided in relation to the financial performance of STS as detailed within section 4 of the report, with a balanced position currently forecast for 2022/23. Following a review of pension contributions for STS staff an average contribution of 26% had also been agreed by all three councils, which members were advised would have no impact on the staff and their contributions and had also been applied from the start of the 2022/23 financial year.
· That the annual review of Inter Authority Agreement (IAA) was currently in the process of being finalised for review by the Joint Management Board prior to the outcome being presented to the Joint Committee.
Following the Service Performance update provided Fabio Negro invited questions from Members with the Joint Committee discussing the points highlighted below:
· In response to a question about apprenticeships and proposals being developed to enhance employment and training opportunities within the STS, Fabio Negro reported that currently 7% of the STS workforce comprised of apprentices with 7/9 places currently filled and opportunities available across all three councils. The STS had also joined the KickStart programme with bids also made to participate in the National Graduate Trainee programmes across each council.
· As a result of the discussion during the meeting further details were sought on the impact of non compliance with PSN accreditation. In response, Fabio Negro advised that whilst not impacting on service delivery the main issue would involve restrictions on the ability to connect and interact with other government networks such as the NHS and DWP although plans were in place as part of the Technology Roadmap to address the main legacy estate issues currently impacting on the achievement of compliance within Southwark.
· In response to a query about the level of open tickets within the STS Fabio Negro advised that these currently stood at 2,600 compared to 3,350 at the end of the previous reporting period. In terms of the action being taken to resolve these issues, members were advised of the work being undertaken to reduce the level of open tickets which had involved the provision of additional technical support alongside contact with third party suppliers (where required) in an attempt to resolve and close longer term tickets.
· Following on from the previous query raised in relation to employment and apprenticeship opportunities across STS details were also sought on any engagement which the STS had with the London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI) and proposals they were developing to establish an Academy of Excellence. In response, Fabio Negro confirmed that the STS were actively engaged and contributing towards the efforts being made through LOTI to develop an Academy in London focussed around providing employment opportunities and training in technology and data roles. In addition, members were advised of the work being undertaken through LOTI in relation to cyber security issues and as part of the Good Things Network involving the distribution of pre-used laptops to local residents as a means of tackling digital exclusion.
As no further matters were raised, the Joint Committee completed their consideration of the updated report. The Chair thanked Fabio Negro for the updates provided and it was RESOLVED:
(1) To note the update provided and actions being taken in relation to the ongoing performance and delivery of the shared service, as detailed within Section 3 of the report.
(2) To note the contents of the Performance Pack as detailed in Section 3 and Appendix A of the report.
(3) As specific actions arising from the update, it was agreed:
(a) That a further update be provided on the work being undertaken through the London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI) and to establish an Academy of Excellence and how the contribution towards this project can be maximised, across the Shared Service and through each member
(b) That a further update be provided on the work being undertaken to achieve PSN accreditation within Lewisham and Southwark.
Supporting documents:
- 07. Joint Committee Report, item 6. PDF 1 MB
- 06a. Appendix A - Joint Committee Performance Pack, item 6. PDF 909 KB