Agenda item

* To consider a report

Mrs A Ashwood, Head of Strategic Support, submitted the annual review of the operation of the ICT Shared Service for the year ending 31 March 2016. The initial five year agreement had commenced on 31 October 2013 on which date the Shared Service Governance Board was established.  This Board was co-Chaired by ACO Evans and the Deputy Chief Executive of Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service.

This was the second annual review of the Shared Service.  The actions arising from the first review were to consider alternative governance arrangements for the Service, to agree a combined project plan and five year strategy, to continue to support the IT Project Management role and to undertake a customer satisfaction survey.

A customer satisfaction survey was undertaken on 4 September 2015 and the results were reported to the Group at its meeting on 26 November 2015. There were plans to undertake another survey following the completion of the VDI project in December 2016.

The review of alternative governance arrangements was not being progressed at this time.

Arising from the second annual review, it was noted that there had been significant improvements made against all five of the shared service objectives.  This included the improvement of the 24/7/365 cover that was provided by the team to support both of the Services and to the resilience of the systems.

The Head of Strategic Support highlighted the 29% improvement to responding to incidents within the time set out in the Service Level Agreement and the 36% improvement in fix times as examples of the significant improvements that had been made following the introduction of the shared service.  The development of an asset network and joint contracts and procurement, such as VDI, were also significant achievements.

Improvements were still required to the operation of the Service Desk, particularly in relation to the prioritisation of non-critical incidents, and these would be progressed during the year.

A watching brief was being kept on the developments arising from changes to EU legislation on data protection for employees from other countries within the EU.

An independent review of cloud readiness was also being jointly commissioned and both Fire and Rescue Services had agreed to continue to support the shared ICT Project Manager post.

In response to questions, the Head of Strategic Support confirmed that both Services wished to continue with the ICT Shared Service at this point in time.

ACO Evans advised that the Group would be kept fully informed of any significant changes proposed through the review leading up to the decision of whether to continue, and on what basis, the ICT Shared Service after the initial five-year period.

In response to a question about the threat arising from malware, the Head of Strategic Support acknowledged that this was a constant challenge.  In addition to the security package purchased from Virgin Media, the Service also had additional security and robust monitoring systems in place to defend itself from attacks.

It was noted that, as part of the VDI project, additional information on cyber security awareness was being presented to all staff.  It was recognised that the shared service arrangements strengthened the Service’s defence against malware threats.

The Chair suggested that the Members of the Group may benefit from seeing the new VDI in action when it had been rolled out across the Service.

RESOLVED:

That the outcomes of the second annual review of the operation of the ICT Shared Service Agreement be acknowledged and the progress in achieving the aims of improved resilience, flexibility, cover, quality and customer focus be noted.