Further to Minute 73 of the meeting held on 14 December 2020, the Executive Director of Resources submitted a report summarising the progress of ‘Digital Futures Foundations’ the project to implement a new ICT Future Operating Model (FOM) following the end of the contract with Northgate Public Services on 31 March 2021. 

The report noted that the five elements of the FOM were a hosting provider, a Unified Communications provider, a Network Management provider, an End User Workspace provider and an enhanced internal ICT organisation.  It summarised progress with the transition to new arrangements for each of these workstreams and explained that since the report to Policy Committee on 14 December 2020 the final procurement, of a Network Management provider, had been completed and a contract awarded to North (formerly Pinacl Solutions).  The other elements were now provided by Agilisys (hosting and end user workspace) and Virgin Media Business (Unified Communications).

The report explained that significant social value commitments had been made by the suppliers as part of the procurement, and that officers were currently working with the suppliers and developing governance arrangements to ensure that maximum value was realised from these.  Proposals would be reported to the September 2021 Policy Committee as part of a post project completion report.

The report set out information on how the current estimated costs of ICT services in the Final Business Case varied from the Outline Business Case and sought approval from the Committee to carry forward a capital underspend from 2020/21 to 2021/22.   The shift of spend reflected the fact that some work that was to have been delivered by Northgate had been moved to Agilisys to avoid conflict with transition, and that the Managed Network procurement had identified the need to upgrade some infrastructure elements after the transition.  The cost of these latter changes had been offset by savings in transition costs elsewhere.

Resolved –

(1)      That the progress made by the project to date be noted;

(2)      That a post project completion report on the outcome of the transition and benefits realisation arising from the implementation of the new operating model, including suppliers’ social value commitments, be submitted to Policy Committee in September 2021;

(3)      That the carry forward of the capital underspend into 2021/22 be approved, noting that this funding would be needed to complete planned work that was intentionally deferred to avoid conflict with the transition to the new model and to upgrade infrastructure in areas where the transition project had identified issues, as set out in the report.