Councillor Brock / Director of Resources

This report seeks approval to award a contract for software licenses and maintenance for the Council’s financial system, and to purchase licenses for the Microsoft 365 suite to replace the current desktop operating system and productivity applications.

The Director of Resources submitted a report proposing that the Council enter into software licensing agreements for the award of a contract for software licenses and maintenance for the Council’s financial system, and to replace the current desktop operating system and core productivity applications.

The report explained that the Council had introduced the Oracle Fusion financial system in August 2014, and the contract had been renewed in 2016 through the Government’s G-Cloud framework agreement, with the current contract due to end on 2 December 2018.  The licenses had been amended to include the use of Oracle Fusion by the Council-owned companies Brighter Futures for Children and Homes for Reading. Oracle had withdrawn from the G-Cloud framework in 2018, and it was therefore proposed to contract directly with Oracle and award a contract for the provision of Fusion Financials Cloud licenses for up to three years.

The report explained that the Council currently used the Microsoft range of productivity tools, with data and applications stored locally.  Advances in cloud computing technology meant that it was now more efficient for many of these workloads to be moved to the cloud, which would also bring benefits around resilience, flexible and mobile working, communication and collaboration.  The current estate of desktop and laptop computers were running Windows 7, for which extended support from Microsoft would end in January 2020, and Microsoft Office 2010, for which extended support would end in October 2020.  After these dates the applications would no longer be supported and no further security fixes or updates released, and upgrades were therefore required to maintain a fully functional and secure operating environment.

The report noted that licenses for previous and current software had been procured on a perpetual basis involving large capital purchases when upgrades became due, along with significant project effort involved in rolling updates out.    The technology sector was moving towards a greater focus on renewable subscriptions to cloud-based services rather than outright purchases.  It was therefore proposed that the Council purchase annual licenses for all users for the cloud-based Microsoft 365 suite comprised of Office 365, Windows 10 and IT Security and Management tools.

Resolved –

(1)     That the award of a contract to Oracle Corporation (‘Oracle’) for the provision of Fusion Financial Cloud service and associated maintenance services be approved;

(2)     That the purchase of 2,000 licenses for the Microsoft 365 suite, renewable on an annual basis, be approved.