Issue - meetings

To seek Cabinet’s support and approval to three proposed digital transformation investment strands to provide opportunities to increase efficiency, reduce operating costs and potentially generate income.

RESOLVED that Cabinet approves -

(a)     each of the Digital Transformation programme investment proposals outlined, specifically;

                             i.    A ‘front office’ product suite and specialist consultant resourcing to achieve integration to ‘back office’ databases over an eighteen month period with one-off investment costs of £519,200 with £71,500 re-occurring costs per annum.

                            ii.    An IT migration strategy and specialist consultant resourcing to host the majority of the Council’s IT systems on the Microsoft Azure ‘Public Cloud’ platform over a two year period with one-off investment costs of £226,000 and with Microsoft re-occurring monthly costs thereafter.

                          iii.    Development of a Tendring Tourism and Events smartphone App over a six month period through specialist consultancy resources and with one-off investment costs of £120,000.

(b)     that authority be delegated to the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Portfolio Holders for Finance and Corporate Resources and Leisure and Tourism, to agree continuation within existing budgets or termination of the App development after a further feasibility study.

(c)     that Digital Transformation Investment works totalling £865,200 be funded in part from £440,000 funds already set aside for existing/ related capital IT improvement budgets with the remaining funding by a transfer of £414,000 from the 2017/18 New Homes Bonus and £11,200 from the Building for the Future Reserve.

(d)     that Officers be requested to finalise the associated procurement activities in accordance with the Council’s Procurement Procedure rules.

(e)     that authority be delegated to the Corporate Director (Corporate Services) to make the necessary on-going budget adjustments to reflect the financial impact of the investment proposed, as set out in Appendix A to item A.9 of the Report of the Finance and Corporate Services Portfolio Holder.

There was submitted a comprehensive report by the Portfolio Holder for Finance and Corporate Resources (Report A.9), which sought Cabinet’s support and approval to three proposed Digital Transformation investment strands to provide opportunities to increase efficiency, reduce operating costs and potentially generate income.

Cabinet was aware that the Council’s IT systems played a fundamental enabling role in its day to day service provision and access to information. The projects and investment set out in the Portfolio Holder’s report in particular formed a key building block in several of the Council’s key strategies and plans to transform and modernise the way the Council worked, delivered services and interacted with residents. More specifically -

ü   The investment proposed demonstrated a strong rate of return and the savings generated would contribute significantly to the newly adopted long term Financial Strategy;

ü   The proposed integration of information held on the Council’s major databases into a single view for staff and the opportunity to develop a Tendring Portal would deliver a step change in the delivery of the Customer Service Strategy;

ü   Significant improvements to the web site and the development of an “Events App” would be a major step forward in improving access to information digitally – helping to deliver Channel Shift; and

ü   The integration of back office systems and the move to host systems and store data remotely in “the cloud” would deliver increased flexibility and the ability to deliver services better using digital means and to support face to face delivery of services by staff – all in accordance with the IT Strategy.

It was reported that for the past six months Officers had been working alongside Amido and Intergence consultants to understand Tendring District Council’s state of digital maturity i.e. how each department currently used IT to deliver statutory and non-statutory services to residents. The recommendations resulting from this work comprised three strands of IT and specialist resource investment proposals, as follows:-

1.         Investment in ‘front office’ IT products and specialist consultant resources to integrate these systems with existing ‘back office’ databases and systems requiring £519,200 one off investment with £71,500 ongoing costs per year and returning an overall ongoing saving of £35,266 per year. (6.8% ROI). The project would enable ‘step change’ improvements in customer service delivery, and Officers mobile working out in the community.  

2.         Investment to migrate IT systems data storage from Council-owned/ maintained hardware that would soon require investment or replacement to that of rented Microsoft Azure platform resources – ‘The Public Cloud’. This project required a one off investment of £226,000 and had ongoing estimated costs of £149,000 which represented a small overall cost increase of £8,337 per year. However, this project represented a shift from periodic and increasingly large capital investment and ownership of IT hardware, to that of monthly ‘pay as you go’ hardware rental costs. There were additional operational benefits in terms of flexibility and business continuity/ resilience.    

3.         Investment to develop a Council Smartphone ‘Tourism and Events App’ to promote tourism  ...  view the full minutes text for item 154