Minutes:
The Strata IT Director reported that there was currently no formal agreement for the support of Councillor IT equipment at either East Devon or Teignbridge with Councillors providing their own IT out of their allocated budget and the authorities providing access to Office 365 to enable emails to be sent and received. Hence, Strata did not support the individual IT equipment (desktops, laptops, printers, tablets) used by each Councillor. IT equipment was not provided by either East Devon or Teignbridge to Councillors to enable them to perform their function.
At Exeter, Councillors were provided with devices to enable them to access both email and various IT systems. As these devices were authority owned, they were supported by Strata, and Councillors regularly contacting Strata to ask for support. The devices were built and provisioned by Strata and Microsoft Outlook was provided as the email platform.
Three options were set out for the support of the Councillors privately owned IT equipment as follows:-
Option 1 - basic service provided by Strata at each location to be paid for by each authority and included in the annual Strata service charge. This would be charged at a rate of £250 per Councillor per annum. Hence for a Council of 50 councillors, the charge would be £12,500per annum.
Option 2 - basic service provided by Strata at each Head Office location to be paid for by each Councillor on an annual basis to be charged at a rate of £250per councillor per annum to be deducted from the Councillor’s expenses payments.
Option 3 – A voucher scheme to enable an authority to buy a number of vouchers which could then be traded for Strata Service Desk support time. The initial minimum number of vouchers per authority would be 20, and each voucher would be worth an hour of Strata level 1 or level 2 time. A pack of 20 vouchers would be charged at a rate of £1,000, equivalent to £50 per hour. The voucher scheme would be administered by Democratic Services department of each authority.
A further option - Option 4 – would involve Councils providing hardware (tablet device) to enable a councillors to perform their role comprising an iPad similar to those provided to Exeter City Council Members. The devices would be loaded with the relevant Strata supported councillor required applications, e.g. email. The estimated cost of providing the iPad device plus support in the first year would be circa £800 per councillor. In subsequent years, there would be an annual support cost of £150 per device. This service did not cover the cost of printing hardware or a home Broadband Service.
On the invitation of the Chair, Councillor Clarence of Teignbridge District Council addressed the Committee. He detailed the ongoing difficulties he was experiencing with IT generally as a result of the Teignbridge District Council policy whereby Councillors purchased equipment from their allowances and because Strata could not offer the necessary support. Crucially, he stated that this hindered his ability to function effectively as a Councillor.
Teignbridge and East Devon Members of the Committee re-iterated the problems being encountered. Although there was no direct support for IT equipment at Teignbridge, the Strata Service Desk had provided limited advice and guidance on IT issues but because of the divergence in personal equipment a comprehensive support was not viable. Similarly, at East Devon, Councillors had obtained limited assistance from Strata with privately owned IT hardware related issues. Some Councillors referred to the specific problems they had encountered with their Council work.
An Exeter City Councillor highly commended the Exeter option where tablets were issued to Councillors on election and where problems could be quickly resolved by the Strata Service Desk. She also commented that the equipment was passed on to new Council Members once a Councillor stood down from office.
Because of the above commendation, it was recognised that the most favourable long term solution was to adopt the Exeter system. However, short term, Members asked that either option 2 or option 3 should be chosen as an immediate resolution to the problems in order for a basic level service to be made available to allow for Councillors to contact the Strata Service Desk to request assistance, with one Member favouring the issue of vouchers as offered in the third option.