Agenda item

To consider the report of the Strata IT Director.

The Strata IT Director presented the report on the last five months of activity at Strata, the aim being to provide background to the core areas of specialisation within Strata and identifying key activities, successes and areas for improvement. The report covered Financial Management, BCR’s and Projects Updates, Strata Service Performance Indicators,Global Desktop Environment, Customer Satisfaction Statisticsand Training Needs.

He highlighted the following key areas:-

·         Strata had movedto the Transformationalphase of its organisational developmentand with the Phase II programme of improvements to theGlobal Desktop introduced in July;

·         the Global Communications project at East Devon had now been completed with the old telephony platforms switched off and work commenced at Exeter City Council which was likely to be more complex due to the age of the current system;

·         on line and real time access to Strata performance statistics, BCR requests and incidents were proving very beneficial;

·         the Strata ‘Out of Hours’ service delivering good value for money with potentially serious issues picked up and resolved;

·         the security situation was under control but attacks sustained at a high level;

·         the new Business Change Request process now fully deployed with workprioritisation in the hands of the three authorities;

·         through the IT Requirement Boards, Project Review meetings and the quarterlyJoint IT Steering group, Strata is better informed on workload priorities;

·         the new Supplier Manageris delivering tighter control of third party spend;

·         Privacy Impact Assessment and GDPR implemented;

·         Strata continuing to monitor financial performance and on track to deliver the £383,000 level of savings;

·         staff morale high with regular social functions and vacancies rapidly filled and a 45% drop in sickness levels;

·         report of Dr Tim Gibson on Strata@4, outlining the development of the Strata organisation over the last four years to be circulated at the end of October;

·         monthly customer satisfaction survey results higher than 97%; and

·         Strata developing the local digital declaration with all three authorities signed up with Teignbridge the lead authority.

The Strata IT Director advised that the new Strata Business Plan would be released in Quarter 3 with a move away from a focus on cost savings to align with the priorities of the three authorities.  He detailed the following fundamental principles of the new Plan as part of the company’s goal to become an ”Agent for Change”:-

·         resetting the key objectives by reducing risk and costs and developing capability and capacity;

·         transitioning from “Business As Usual” to “Transformational Value” - currently a 85%/15% split;

·         revising the Governance Framework to better empower the authorities;

·         adapting the funding model;

·         commercialising the operation; and

·         creating a longer term agreement.

The Director with responsibility for Finance explained the challenges in moving from the current model of cost reduction to predicable and committed upfront annual cost savings. Rather than the three authorities providing the same revenue at the beginning of the year with Strata refunding at the year end, Strata would identify cost savings at the beginning and request a lower amount from the Councils.

The Strata IT Director put forward the following seven recommendations in respect of Governance arrangements:-

·         reduce Strata Joint Scrutiny Committee and Strata Joint Executive Committee meetings to once every six months;

·         introduce an annual Strata/Executive forum to discuss authority strategy and transformational initiatives;

·         empower the JITSG and IRB to prioritise Strata workload;

·         empower the JITSG and IRB to inform Strata on authority transformation strategy;

·         continue to provide monthly Strata service indicator reports;

·         produce an annual Strata report for circulation to Councillors and staff; and

·         recruit an experienced IT non-Executive Director to sit on the Strata Board and to inform and guide the Board in IT issues.

The Strata IT Director set out a vision of increased commercialisation as part of the transformational approach with design, innovation, business intelligence, new service creation and web site re-engineering as some of the key elements of such change and which could ultimately provide a zero cost organisation for the authorities.

As an important step in the transformation journey, the need to agree a longer term contract had been identified. The current 18 month rolling contract hampered negotiations of leasing arrangements and could also hinder staff recruitment. It was proposed that the contract should align with the original Strata Business Plan and be extended to 2024/25.

The following responses were given to Members’ queries:-

·         all servers were to migrate to Oakwood House with the last stage of the East Devon server moves to Exeter nearing completion with physical decommissioning of the East Devon site to commence. Only three of the 100 Teignbridge servers remained - the deadline for migration being the beginning of October;

·         Granicus, formally Gov Delivery, had been recommenced as a tool for communicating with residents through letters/questionnaires;

·         Power BI was being introduced as a training manual for data analysis and report writing;

·         four outages had occurred in the last three months classed as major incidents with maximum Strata response, notwithstanding the commitment to transformational change;

·         the role of Councillors in supporting their constituents communicate with the Council and the growing technological options was recognised and it was suggested that voicemail was likely to be the preferred method in coming years;

·         a number of options for supporting Councillors with their IT needs and to be progressed as part of any new training programme would be examined including through the service desk such as use of training videos and inviting training requests; and

·         Members were welcome to put forward ideas/innovation suggestions such as through an innovation forum, half yearly workshops etc.

Strata Joint Scrutiny Committee:-

(1)        noted the report;

(2)        recommended to the Strata Joint Executive Committee the adoption of the seven proposals for changing the Governance arrangements including reducing the Strata Joint Scrutiny Committee and the Strata Joint Executive Committee meetings to once every six months; and

(3)        recommended to the Strata Joint Executive Committee that the Strata contract be changed from an 18 month rolling contract to a contract expiring in line with the original Strata Business Plan in 2024/25