To confirm the Minutes of the meeting held on 1 June 2010.

Paul Claussen in the Chair

a)                 Minutes (Minute No. 46/10)

Mr W Smith had emailed some notes to the Head of ICT with regard to Minute No. 29/10 of the meeting held on 4 May 2010 concerning the progress of the Licensing Project.  Members were informed that the Business Improvement Team was concentrating on the review and the Head of ICT would be providing further information on this matter later on in this meeting under Agenda item 7.

Referring to the back up generator, which had been discussed at Corporate Management Team (CMT) and was subject to further investigation based on scope of power needs (e.g. was this just comms and ICT equipment or whole of the office, and also whether we purchase or rent), the Chairman advised that this should be covered within the remit of emergency planning. Lady K Fisher felt that a back up generator was needed in case all of the Council’s systems failed.  She asked if this was something that could be hired in an emergency such as a bio-diesel apparatus.  The Chairman pointed out that hiring such equipment would not be the route he would choose due to the potential for demand outstripping supply in the event of major outages.  Further information on the location of a generator would be needed as there was a similar need for the Thetford office (which, it was noted, had a generator but was for the use of the CCTV service only).  It was further noted that there was a generator at the Guildhall in Dereham; therefore, consideration was needed as to whether ICT kit could be reallocated to the Guildhall in the event of an emergency.  The Head of ICT stated that the Emergency Planning Officer and Asset Management should raise this matter at the CMT meetings as it was not strictly an ICT project.

The Senior Accountant advised that she would take this as an action whilst working on the Capital Projects and would make contact with Steve Udberg, the Head of Asset Management.

It was suggested that Breckland Council could also seek to explore reciprocal arrangements with another authority with regard to off site systems recovery.

It was AGREED that a progress report would be brought to a future meeting of the Business Improvement Sub-Committee.

b)           Customer Access Strategy (Minute No. 51/10)

Lady K Fisher reported that she would be contacting the Director of Community Services to come up with a way forward on this matter as the above Strategy, in her opinion, was still not fit for purpose.    It was pointed out that the use of the © mark on Council scripts was still debateable.  

c)            ICT Security Policy (Minute No. 52/10)

Members were informed that changes to the Policy had now been incorporated and the document was on the Agenda for the forthcoming meeting of the Local Joint Consultative Committee and the Executive Board.  Unison had suggested some useful points which had been incorporated in the revised document.

The Chairman asked  ...  view the full minutes text for item 62.

To receive any apologies for absence. 

Apologies for absence were received from Mr W Smith and Mr P Duigan.

Report of the Head of ICT.

The Head of ICT explained that the document had previously been through the Business Improvement Sub-Committee and had been re-issued to reflect changes due to adoption of Blackberrys and Government Connect obligations.  Provision of further details on this matter was due to go to the relevant Committee process.

Breckland Council currently used a wide suite of Capita Payment Management solutions.  It was proposed to move some services to a Capita managed service which would eliminate the risk and cost of maintaining on-site card data.  Some call centre payments did reside securely on-site and were stored within an on-site APACs server; however, as of April 2011, the Capita on-site APACs solution would no longer be supported.

There was now an opportunity to rectify the situation.  Breckland Council could upgrade to the full SBS Managed APACs solution (the same as chip and pin) which would bring about many benefits.

The need for such a standard had been highlighted through publication of a number of security incidents such as TK Maxx and Newcastle City Council, which involved exposure of cardholder data.  All merchants and service providers that dealt with cardholder data were now required to demonstrate compliance to the PCI Data Security Standard.

Applying for funds to upgrade to the Capita on-site APACs Server to Capita off-site managed APACs through SBS would aid Breckland Council in achieving its PCI Compliance aims.

All alternative solutions had been investigated.

A Proforma B was circulated.

The amount of capital funding requested was £18k.  This would enable Capita to transfer the on-site Server to Capita and allow the ICT Team to eliminate all restricted data.

RESOLVED that:

1)           the total Capital cost of £18,000 be released from the ICT Strategy funding for the implementation of SBS;

2)           the revenue costs be funded from the existing LAGAN BPM budget; and

3)           the balance of £3,735 be transferred to the target efficiency savings year on year (pro rata for 2010/11).

Update on all live projects, including the Licensing Project, by the ICT Project Manager/BIT Team Lead.

The ICT Project Manager highlighted the progress on approved and future projects.  A report was circulated.

CR2000 Replacement

Four work packages had been identified, orders had been raised for work packages 1 and 3, a new import file for the mixed payments issue had been written by Capita and was in test, and the Department Work & Pensions (DWP) file format had been received and specifications were being agreed with Steria and Capita.

The estimated completion times were noted.

Licensing Project

The ICT Project Manager felt that this project had demonstrated the greatest value to the Licensing Team and its customers.  This was an excellent product but would take another five/six months to complete.  The new system was pulling out many unexpected issues but all the problems that were being found were being addressed.  The new system would allow multi-skilling within the Team and would create additional benefit than had been realised.  Taxi drivers were already experiencing the impact of the new Licensing system as the Team was now able to be more proactive.  The second part of this project was putting in ‘Enterprise’ which was the public facing part of the system and provided some excellent mobile facilities.  Breckland Council was also the first authority to barcode its taxi plates and licences and was already receiving plaudits for its implementation.

The Chairman asked whether Lalpac would be suitable for other parts of the Council.  In response, the ICT Project Manager explained that the Business Improvement Manager was looking to pull across all licensable activities across to the system.  It would also give the Council the opportunity to offer this service to other authorities in the future.

Members were informed that Breckland did not own the rights within Lalpac.

Taxis, charities and TEN had been completed but premises licenses were still to be data cleansed and completed.

The Policy & Performance Manager felt that Breckland Council could become a marketing opportunity for Lalpac’s website and the project plan could be of value to other authorities.

The Capital and Revenue costs were explained and the business opportunities were discussed.  The Senior Accountant felt that it would be worthwhile to have a forecast for the forthcoming budgets at the September meeting.

Government Connect Phase 2

Simon Stubbs, also an ICT Project Manager, had been working on this project.  Internal and external system health checks had been carried out.  The project had kept within budget and Phase 1 was now complete.

Referring to Citrix, the Chairman asked if it was just Members that were experiencing problems with this system.  The ICT Project Manager advised that Simon Stubbs was working with Steria to understand some of the issues; as a few errors had also been logged by Officers.

It was agreed that an update on Citrix be provided at the next meeting.

Website Rebuild

There were no issues to report at this stage.  The Marketing & Communications Officer demonstrated to Members where the Council was at with the website rebuild.

The new website was being designed  ...  view the full minutes text for item 66.

Update on progress.

A high level network diagram and the proposed generic web based structure were displayed.

These changes would provide the Council with significant resilience and would also save money.

Work would start on the infrastructure refresh in the next six months.

Update by the Head of ICT / Steria.

Another contract had been signed for Voice and Broadband services – expected savings of between £12 and £20k.

Steria had been asked for a service performance update – this would be reported at the next meeting.

There were no significant problems to report.

Suggested Transformational Programme with statement on resources needed.

Deferred until the next meeting.

Report of the Senior Accountant Capital and Treasury.

Capital budgets were being re-visited; any budget not released would have to be reviewed.

An ICT programme of how the monies were going to be spent was required.

A Budget Challenge day was being arranged for September 2010.

It was agreed that the Senior Accountant and the Head of ICT should have a meeting to discuss all budgetary issues as soon as possible.

To note that the next meeting will be held on 31 August 2010 at 09.30am in the Norfolk Room, Conference Suite, Elizabeth House, Dereham.

The arrangements for the next meeting were noted.