To confirm the Minutes of the meeting held on 6 April 2010.

The following points were noted:

Minute No 6/10 – Completed.

Minute No 7/10 – Awaiting next CMT meeting for issue of the standardised project documentation.<1>

Minute No 13/10 – Council tax optimisation – funds had now been transferred and the issue resolved.

Minute No 21/10 – Security Policy had been changed to reflect comments and would come back to the next meeting.  With reference to the status of a generator for Elizabeth House, this was subject to decision on the wind turbine, as there would be a shared requirement for storage batteries which would help reduce generator costs.

Minute No 24/10 – Environmental Management Systems ISO14001 – date now revised to end of May.<2>

Minute No 29/10 – LAGAN healthcheck – it was recommended that BIT prepare a report for the next meeting on ‘next steps’.

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

To receive any apologies for absence. 

Apologies for absence were received from Paul Claussen, Monica Coffey, Andy Radford and Helen McAleer.

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 Customer Services Manager was unable to attend the meeting however the Head of IT said he had been aware of a complete revision of the original document in line with earlier recommendations and understood this would be ready for the next meeting.<1>

The group discussed the need to ensure this was aligned with Communications/Web and also, for completeness represented all customer facing services (including Capita Symonds where appropriate).

Report by Lesley Heywood, Strategic Contracts & Procurement Manager.

The Strategic Contracts and Procurement Manager presented the revised report.

This more concise strategy was well received by the group.  Of specific note was the sustainable and green procurement elements.  The Chairman was pleased with the Strategy and was happy to endorse it.

Report of the Housing Strategy and Development Officer.

The Principal Housing Officer presented the report.

The application to support Digi TV for Housing with costs of £12,000 for implementation plus £3,000 for year one support was to be covered by existing budgets within Housing.

The group agreed that the Digi TV channel could be effective, (this was evidenced from other Local Authorities in Norfolk that had subscribed already) – although there was some debate over the costs of the additional plug-in for the Civica CBL system, a cost that Civica had yet to provide, and also some discussion over costs for year two support onwards (c£3,000 per annum).

The Assistant Director - Environmental Health & Housing explained that it was expected that these costs would be recovered from the charges that Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) would need to meet for the use of the Choice Based Lettings service.

The Sub Committee agreed to endorse the project, but on the following terms:

1)     That Phase 2 be postponed initially (as this was subject to successful recovery of charges from RSLs – and was dependant on take up.)

2)     That the costs of the plug-in were identified and approved prior to any order for Phase 1 being made.  (NB: Meeting with Civica expected before end of June 2010 to clarify this)   If costs were prohibitive then this could cease the project.

3)     That any other ongoing costs for Phase 2 be clarified well in advance of end of initial phase to ensure budgetary provision was sufficient to continue to deliver the service.

Report of the Marketing & Communications Officer.

The Marketing and Communications Officer presented the application.

The group reviewed the proposal supporting the spend of some £34,500 to initiate a refresh of the Breckland Website.   The recent Social Media Survey that had gone to all householders indicated that there was a demand for a better web site and also a willingness to adopt Social Media channels.  A presentation had already been well received by Exec Board/Cabinet previously and the BISC application was to formally release funds of £34,500 to initiate the redesign of the website (and in parallel to undertake a data cleanse exercise and introduce more robust governance around maintaining currency and usefulness of public facing data) with responsibility at Service Head level.

The Marketing and Communications Officer was also keen to look to externally host the website (for expediency, Disaster Recovery, and initial support reasons).  However the Head of IT explained that there was no ‘new’ revenue money for year 2 onwards, (in fact he was looking to reduce revenue costs) – and that Communications would need to fund year 2 onwards, or other efficiencies would need to be made to provide additional revenue (c£3,000 pa) for year 2 onwards.  It was also noted that although there were efficiency savings to be had through a revised web site, these savings would only be realised through adoption of phase 2 web redesign with adoption of transactional services – which was out of scope of this phase.

The Sub Committee agreed to proceed based on year 1 costs as per the application, and accepted that, within 6 months of the end of the hosting agreement, it might need to review the position again if revenue was not identified and made available to support this.

Update by the ICT Project Manager.

In the absence of the Project Manager, this item was deferred until the next meeting.

Update by the ICT Project Manager.

The Government Connect programme was proceeding well – although reassessment for v4.1 was expected January 2011.

Update by the Senior Business Improvement Officer.

The Senior Business Improvement Officer updated the Sub-Committee.

A written report had previously been submitted which had highlighted some staffing/resourcing challenges within the team – caused in part by seeking to deliver a new system and processes alongside existing day to day activities. There was a resolution plan in place to address this.

Update by the Senior Accountant Capital and Treasury.

The Senior Accountant Capital and Treasury gave an update.

She reported that the Capital programme was looking healthy – although there was a real risk of losing some or all of the carry over if there was insufficient justification received by Cabinet on 12 May.  The Head of IT said that he would pull together a supplementary report that would inform Cabinet of ICT intentions as regards Capital, together with supporting text and risks of not spending the Capital for Cabinet the following week.

To note that the next meeting will be held on Tuesday 1 June 2010 at 09.30 in the Norfolk Room.

To note that the next meeting would be held on Tuesday 1 June 2010 at 09:30 in the Norfolk Room.