Agenda item

·  Recommendation of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee from its meeting held on Thursday 7^th April in relation to the ICT Improvement Programme.

That the recommendation from the Overview & Scrutiny Committee on 7th April 2022 be noted, and that the Lead Member for Customer Services, Procurement and Performance consider the matter with scrutiny members and officers, then report back to Cabinet.

“That the Committee support the proposed hybrid approach of building both in-house capacity and securing an ICT partner be supported in principle, but that key data storage and management hardware and systems be kept in-house.”

The Cabinet received a reference from the Overview & Scrutiny Committee from its meeting held on 7th April 2022 in relation to the Initial ICT Improvement Programme.

“That the Committee support the proposed hybrid approach of building both in-house capacity and securing an ICT partner be supported in principle, but that key data storage and management hardware and systems be kept in-house.”

Lead Members commented that operational ICT related decisions would generally best be taken by expert officers in the IT team and noted the risks in in-house provision rather than cloud based solutions.  It was suggested that further information could be sought to better understand the rationale for the scrutiny recommendation and the detail could be considered as the IT improvement programme was delivered.

The Leader noted that there is to be a new Cabinet Member responsible for IT who could explore the issue further with scrutiny members and IT officers and report back to a future Cabinet.

Resolved –

That the recommendation from the Overview & Scrutiny Committee on 7th April 2022 be noted, and that the Lead Member for Customer Services, Procurement and Performance consider the matter with scrutiny members and officers, then report back to a future Cabinet meeting.

“That the Committee support the proposed hybrid approach of building both in-house capacity and securing an ICT partner be supported in principle, but that key data storage and management hardware and systems be kept in-house.”