To confirm the Minutes of the meeting held on 5 January 2010.

The Chairman welcomed Andy Radford to his first meeting of the Sub-Committee. 

The following points from the Minutes were noted:

Min 1/10

The Citrix roll-out to Members had slowed down while issues were addressed.  Advice was being sought from other Local Authorities on how they had dealt with problems.

Cllr Claussen and Lady Fisher both liked the new notebooks.  Cllr Claussen suggested that training was needed to help Members adjust to different working methods.

The Chairman suggested that Members should be given the choice of which hardware format to use (eg laptop/Netbook/netpc).  A survey would be carried out to determine the preferred model, followed by compulsory training sessions on preferred devices to avoid unnecessary support calls.

The Head of ICT was holding regular meetings with Margaret Bailey, especially during the current ‘year end’ phase regarding financial budgeting.

The Head of ICT was attending monthly meetings with other local authorities where discussions on sharing of services and expertise were being held reviewing and investigating a number of opportunities.

Min 6/10

There were still concerns about the Contact Centre’s capacity to deal with the increase in enquiries leading up to the General Election.  The Chairman asked Andy Radford to check if South Norfolk had procedures which could be shared.  He also asked for an update on election readiness of the Contact Centre to be made to the Exec Board on Monday 12 April 2010.

Min 7/10

The Policy and Performance Manager would be presenting a report to CMT on Wednesday proposing standardised documentation to allow for projects to be approved, managed and closed.  A single governance model for project initiation would also be introduced.  The new system would allow for progress tracking.  The design should be ready for the next meeting.

Min 10/10

Only high level figures had been made available at the workshop.  The Chairman asked for a finance representative to attend future meetings.<2>

Min 13/10

The Chairman said that the Chief Executive was now involved in trying to resolve this matter.  The Director of Governance and Finance was meeting with Forest Heath later in the day and he would also discuss it then.

The minutes of the meeting held on 6 January 2010 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

To receive any apologies for absence. 

Apologies for absence were received from Margaret Bailey, Monica Coffey and Lesley Heywood.

To consider any urgent business.

None.

Members are asked at this stage to declare any interests they may have in any of the following items on the agenda. The Members’ Code of Conduct requires that declarations include the nature of the interest and whether it is a personal or prejudicial interest.

None.

To note the names of any non-members who wish to address the meeting.

Mr P Duigan was in attendance.

Report of the Director of Governance and Finance.

The Head of ICT presented the report which refreshed the Security Policy.

He pointed out that the ISO27001 standard referred to at point 4.2 of the report was not currently being sought but was the standard that the Council should aspire to.

With reference to point 6.1, the Chairman asked if it would still be acceptable to download such things as map updates to Council provided navigation devices, etc and was advised that this should be fine as these items did not pose a security risk.  However, as there were restrictions on downloading from the internet, Members should always check with ICT before requesting a download.

The question of Members using social media strategy, such as Facebook and Twitter was also discussed.  Although it was acceptable to access such sites when representing the Council it was suggested that Members would benefit from training to help them avoid potential problems.  (Note:  Communications are due to issue a Social Media Policy document shortly).

Business Continuity was discussed and the Chairman requested an update from the Deputy Chief Executive at the next meeting, to advise on what methods of back-up power generation were being considered for Elizabeth House; whether there was budget availability and if so, the proposed timeline for their introduction.<1>

With regard to the use of passwords the Head of ICT said that a training session and security awareness exercise would be arranged for Members and Officers to reiterate the need for security and to ensure all staff and Members were aware of their obligations.  The Chairman suggested that the training should be compulsory.

The Director of Governance and Finance noted that the wording on page 141 should mirror that under 3.1.1 on page 121, requiring all staff and Members to read, understand and comply with the ICT Security Policy.  He also asked what would happen if anyone failed to sign the undertaking.

The Head of ICT undertook to reissue page 141 to amend the wording and to clarify the consequences of failing to sign.  He would also amend the wording to require all completed slips to be returned to him.

The report was noted.

Report of the Director of Governance and Finance.

Lady Fisher was keen to launch the Customer Access Strategy but the Chairman was concerned that it did not clearly set out how it would achieve its aims.  In the absence of the Customer Services Manager it was agreed to bring the Strategy back to the next meeting for clarification.

Report by Lesley Heywood, Strategic Contracts & Procurement Manager.

In the absence of the Strategic Contracts & Procurement Manager the Policy and Performance Manager presented the Strategy. 

The Chairman was concerned that the Strategy was too long.  He said that a Strategy should define the objectives and the ways that they could be optimally achieved in about six pages.  The narrative should be contained in appendices to the Strategy.  He asked for the Senior Business Improvement Officer to attend the next meeting as he had designed a model which the Chairmen thought should be used for all future Strategies.

The Policy and Performance Manager explained that the Strategy had been trimmed already and had been brought to the meeting to receive feedback from the Members.  

It was agreed that the report would be brought back to the next meeting.

Report presented by Stephen James, Policy and Performance Manager.

The Policy and Performance Manager presented his report which considered the benefits that could be delivered by the ISO 14001 (Environmental Management) standard.

The Chairman asked if funding had been allocated and was told that an application could be made to the Organisational Development Reserve to finance the first year’s costs.  The Policy and Performance Manager suggested that a Pre-Certification Audit would help to identify the current position and enable the production of a Gap Analysis and implementation plan.

The Chairman asked the Director of Governance and Finance if South Norfolk might be interested in joining the Council to achieve the standard and he agreed to raise the matter with them.

The Chairman noted that if the standard was introduced it would be managed by Lady Fisher’s portfolio.  He had also asked the Policy and Performance Manager to investigate BSI 31100(?) which would be managed by the Governance Portfolio, although both would be reviewed by the Audit Committee under its Risk Management and Governance function.

The Policy and Performance Manager confirmed that his section had the capacity to carry out the work and said that the Gap Analysis report currently being undertaken would be presented to the Audit Committee.

RESOLVED that:

(1)               An application be made to the Organisational Development Reserve for funding; and

(2)               The report be presented to CMT and Audit Committee for their views.

Update on the Licensing and Business Support Improvement Programme by the Senior Business Improvement Officer.

The report author was not in attendance at the meeting.

The Chairman asked what progress had been made on front line optimisation and Lady Fisher advised him that guidelines had been produced and that systems would be developed to monitor and review outcomes.

The new ICT system was in and working and about 10% of the data migration and cleansing had taken place.  It was noted that the data migration timetable had slipped a little and this element of the project would not be fully completed in April, however it was expected that it would be 85% complete within three months.  This work was taking longer than expected due to staff changes/shortages and the necessity to significantly cleanse the data before it was migrated.

The Business Support Team had now formally disbanded and the existing staff had been successfully re-deployed in new roles within the Authority.

After further discussion the Chairman concluded that this was an excellent model of how projects should be done.  He congratulated Licensing, the BIT, ICT and Finance teams on the good work they had all done to date.

Report of the ICT Project Manager.

The ICT Project Manager presented the report which contained a table of 33 projects, 15 of which were complete and could now be formally signed off.  A separate list of potential future projects was also included in the report.  This project list would be reissued with the completed projects removed.

The Chairman queried the capacity of the teams to deliver such a number of projects and asked if there should be a cap on the number of projects to be undertaken.  It was decided that this was not practical as some projects needed very little input, whereas others took a great deal of time. 

The ICT Project Manager asked for approval to request the carry over of £667,000 to supplement the £289,000 allocated in the current year’s budget.  The Chairman provisionally approved this but requested that more financial information be circulated to the Sub-Committee.<1>

The Chairman left the meeting at 12.35pm.

Report of the ICT Project Manager.

Mr P Claussen assumed the Chair for the remainder of the meeting.

The ICT Project Manager presented the end of project report. 

Although a fully functioning ICT system had been installed, it was noted that the full operational benefits of this project had not been realised.  The Project and Performance Manager undertook to ensure that this would appear in the relevant department’s Service Plan.

The Chairman suggested that it might be necessary to bring such items to the Performance Clinic to ensure benefits were realised as indicated in the PID.

The report was noted.

Report of the Environmental Health Manager.

The ICT Project Manager confirmed that this project had realised its benefits, been completed on time and was being used successfully by the team.

The Chairman asked how this achievement could be acknowledged and the Policy and Performance Manager suggested that the Performance Clinic would be the appropriate forum to demonstrate the success of this project.  The Head of ICT also referenced positive feedback received from the recent Overview and Scrutiny Commission.

Report of the ICT Project Manager.

The ICT Project Manager explained that this was a continuous project with new requirements surfacing each year.  In the current year the Council would be required to comply with Gov 4.1 which provided additional security and financial obligations on the Council.  Further information on the Council’s obligations was being sought.

The work done by Simon Stubbs, to bring the Council up to the required standard, was noted and recognised by the Chairman who said this was another excellent project that was being done well and should also be acknowledged at the Performance Clinic.

Report of the ICT Project Manager.

The ICT Project Manager explained that the Council was required to be PCI compliant for card transactions. 

The project was in three phases:

Phase 1          -           Carry out an assessment

Phase 2          -           Take action to address any areas that failed to meet PCI

Standards

Phase 3          -           Monitor

Phase 1 had been completed and all card information was now stored off site by CAPITA who already had PCI compliance.

The Director of Governance and Finance noted that South Norfolk had been through this process about two years ago and had also entrusted card information to CAPITA.

The ICT Project Manager said that they would be formulating an action plan for Phase 2 and would seek advice from South Norfolk on how they had managed this phase.

Report of the Housing Strategy and Development Officer.

As the sponsors were not available to attend, this report was deferred until the next meeting.

To consider passing the following resolution:

“That under Section 100(A) of the Local Government Act 1972 the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they involve the disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Act”.

PART B – ITEMS FROM WHICH THE PRESS AND PUBLIC ARE EXCLUDED

RESOLVED that under Section 100(A) of the Local Government Act 1972 the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that they involved the disclosure of exempt information as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Act.

Report of the ICT Project Manager.

The ICT Project Manager told Members that a health check had been carried out to ascertain the current position and identify any problems.

The test had identified a number of issues and a workshop had been arranged to discuss what actions to take and in what order.

The Chairman was keen for more use to be made of the information available from the Lagan system.  He suggested that the Senior Business Improvement Officer should work on this to promote wider use of Lagan across the authority and to ensure that the valuable data collected by the system was being used to best effect by relevant service areas. 

It was agreed that the Senior Business Improvement Officer would present a report to CMT.

Report of the ICT Project Manager.

The ICT Project Manager explained that the Council were required to carry out regular Penetration Tests as part of the Gov Connect programme.  The test would need to be repeated again at the end of the year.

Various issues had been highlighted from the past test and actions were underway.  An update on progress would be given at the next meeting.

The report was noted.

Report of the Head of ICT.

The report was noted.

To note that the next meeting will be held on Tuesday, 4 May 2010 at 9.30am – venue to be confirmed.

At the request of the Chairman the date of the next meeting was changed from 4 to 5 May 2010.

The next meeting would be held in the St George’s Room, Elizabeth House at 09.30 on Wednesday 5 May 2010.