Agenda item

Invitees –

-       Matt Lewis - Chief Officer, Shared Resource Service

-       Kath Beavan-Seymour - Assistant Director Shared Resource Service

-       Mike Doverman - User Support Manager, Shared Resource Service

-       Rhys Cornwall - Strategic Director – Transformation and Corporate Centre

-       Mark Bleazard - Digital Services Manager

-       Dominic Gibbons - Digital Projects Manager

The Strategic Director provided the Committee with a brief introduction on the partnership with Shared Resource Service (SRS). They were advised that the partnership is coming up to five years and were reminded of their journey before the partnership. The Strategic Director expressed gratitude for the Digital Team and SRS for the vast amount of work done in a short period of time during the announcement of the first lockdown in March 2020. Members were advised they would not have been in the position they had been in, had Newport City Council not had the partnership with SRS.

The Chief Officer for SRS ran through the performance data from the report provided to explain how they operate with the six different partners. It was underlined that SRS staff performance remained relatively unaffected by the remote working position. The project and core functions schedules were hugely impacted across Corporate and Education teams due to the significant shift in demand to enabling new ways of working, having to find new solutions to very different problems and having to continually pivot to meet new demands at short notice. EdTech was highlighted as successful and the dialogue with local schools were consistent through meetings for feedback.

The officers welcomed questions from the Committee.

The Committee asked the following:

·         A Member noted how some companies’ software licences can cost a lot of money and asked how often SRS review licences so the Council does not spend money on services they do not use.

The Chief Officer stated that at the governance and finance board mentioned in the report, has two steps. For instance, for the Office 365 licensing, it was noted that is complex with many options with different licenses needed for bundles/packs and changes on a frequent basis. The first strand of work for the team is bringing someone in to buy the tool, put it in use for three months and it would inform them if the user needs the specific license and if they require a more or less expensive one.

Members were advised there is an upcoming meeting where it could tell them if a user uses O365 often and where they can remove people who leave straight away from the Microsoft database as they can incur a subscription charge if they still have the license to use that.

The second strand of work is the management of licensing, the team would look at checking on premises. This has been demonstrated and goes with an agent which catalogues all of the licenses and tells them which licenses are being used and if they are licensed for certain kits. Would be helpful for Newport to know if they are paying for things they do not need.

·         The Member then queried if the officers look into getting best value hardware for the council. The Member went on to use an example; if chrome books would be better suited than a laptop.

In response, the Chief Officer noted chrome books would not suit the needs of organisations such as Newport City Council; this is because there are restrictions with them such as cannot download software locally or save many files. Functions need to work for the organisation. For procurement, SRS buy in bulk and advised the Committee that they get fantastic prices; better than some larger organisations and that their laptop price is incredibly low.

·         The officers for their presentation and praised the Help Desk team of SRS with their speedy responses to issues. Members then asked when things go wrong and are repaired; if staff keep notes on how they are repaired for future reference.

The Chief Officer confirmed that there is a process with the major incident team and all of that is documented and saved in case things do happen. The Help Desk already has the knowledge base, so they will be able to solve the issue quicker second time around.

·         Members queried how was the partnership from the start and if the partners swap ideas.

The Chief Officer confirmed that at the start, a few things did not work, such as the first strategy of using the same HR and pay system. Collaboration is not about being under the same systems with big businesses. With the strategy, they wish to do different things but with the same infrastructure level. It is the first time in twelve years for SRS, that everyone will use the new infrastructure when they all move to use this.The Business and Collaboration Board are meeting Thursday 2 December where it gives them the chance to present what some of SRS are not involved in, so they can learn from other organisations also. They are in a much better place from when it started.

·         The Chair queried if policies have had to change with COVID and if the partnership has changed? The officers were also asked to expand on the impact of not being able to meet in person and what future barriers the officers might foresee because of the pandemic.

The Chief Officer confirmed that the prior to the lockdown announcement in 2020, there was 18 months planning of work. Designing together where they work in the same Office 365 environment, in order to prepare work on how to migrate mail and users with log in changes. The timing of the pandemic matched up for the team with the time of remoteness. Newport City Council had already been migrated in mail, other Local Authorities such as Blaenau Gwent had not been. From being prepared, the team looked like they flipped the switch which is a testament to the work done prior to that.

Members were advised it has been difficult on the service delivery, notably with schools who experienced a difficult time during the pandemic. During their migration period, it was not helpful for the school staff for SRS to be switching things on and off so they worked their way around that. Despite the challenges, they managed to maintain SLAs to deliver and Covid accelerated non-technical people on where they need to go with their queries. SRS would like to get out of their data centre and move work into the cloud moving forward.

The Digital Services Manager echoed the Chief Officer in the focus on the technological pieces which has been an advantage to everyone. The system side of things was challenging and from the digital services team in Newport, they work collaboratively to help them think where they can do things differently. It was stressed that the team take on board what SRS has in mind for them in meetings. A lot of preparation was undertaken by SRS on the email system and the scheduling for teams migration was ready to go by 2020.  It was recognised that there are things that the team could improve but acknowledged the positives that have come out from the situation.

·         How much money do the Council save, and do any savings go into other areas of the Council?

The Chief Officer replied by stating this would be more of a question for the Digital Services Manager, but it would be difficult to answer as there are so many differently calculated savings. The Digital Services Manager confirmed that would be difficult to quantify, as a lot has been reinvested. If they usually save on a system; that would enable them to save and buy something else that they would not have been able to purchase for the council before. It was explained as a complex position and SRS has achieved it by the size of the organisation.

The Chief Officer reiterated that on the scale of things; there are now thousands more devices in schools since they first came in and have not sized up on their organisation with staff levels.

·         The Chair queried with regard to savings and with the costs increasing globally; for purchasing, if the officers have any fears that the costs are going to rise for them.

The Chief Officer confirmed that they have a risk register that they take to the finance board quarterly and the global supply chain is included every 3 months too. It was confirmed that it can take longer to get hold of things and that they are costing more. The Committee were assured that as the team bulk buy, the costs are not increasing as much for them so they do not have to chase suppliers. However, it was mentioned that SRS has had to buy alternative equipment where needed over the last 18 months. In all there is concern but however this is starting to alleviate for the team but stressed that the waiting times are more of a concern than the cost at the moment.

The Committee thanked the officers for their time and everyone involved in the work. It was agreed that the digital staff and SRS team are often the unsung heroes so asked the officers to pass on their thanks to all of the staff.

Conclusions

The Committee noted the update on the Shared Resource Service’s arrangements for IT service delivery and wished to make the following comments:

-       The Committee wished to thank the officers for attending and requested that their thanks and gratitude was sent to all members of staff for their continued hard work throughout the pandemic, allowing the Council to be ahead of the game by adapting.

-        Committee were pleased to hear that Newport were ahead of the game in comparison to other areas like Blaenau Gwent and were able to adapt very quickly rather than being rushed like they were in other areas. Members were also impressed with how the partnership were able to administer more devices compared to how they started without taking on any additional staff. Members recognise that the workload was managed extremely well.

-       The Committee recommended that SRS should promote themselves more on how well they work with Newport City Council, this could be through means such as Newport Matters.

-       The Committee wished to confirm if there are health checks between the Council and SRS. It was also queried what challenges do the partnership face and how they undertake these challenges for the future.