Issue - meetings

This report provides an update on the progress of the ICT Strategy following a question from a member of the committee at the July meeting.

The Committee received a report providing an update on the progress of the ICT Strategy following the request from members at the July meeting.

The following matters were considered:

a)            Desktops. A Member of the Committee asked what proportion of the Council are using desktops and if there is any risk associated with desktops which are not reported in the update. The Head of ICT responded to explain that the Council has very few desktops, and that there is currently a programme of work to provide small form factor desktops for specialist use such as the print room, with these units being joined to the Council’s Microsoft 365 tenant and managed and deployed with Windows 11.

b)            Local Government Reorganisation. A Member of the Committee asked what actions are being taken to ensure EEBC’s IT changes are aligned with other local authorities in preparation for Local Government Reorganisation in Surrey. The Head of ICT explained that every month the Surrey Chief Officers group meets to discuss LGR and potential ways of working in the future. This provides the opportunity to securely share information that is not feeing into the official request for information programme. There is a dedicated resource for this programme at EEBC. The Head of ICT explained that it is too early to understand what the new unitary authority will look like from an ICT point of view and that most local authorities in Surrey are taking a keep the lights on approach to the ongoing support and development of the current IT systems.

c)            Revised Timeline. The Chair raised that the report shows that only 60% of this year’s objectives have been delivered due to delays and reprioritisation. The Chair asked what specific actions are in place to accelerate progress and what is the revised timeline to deliver the remaining objectives. The Head of ICT explained that there has been significant work undertaken to remove out of support servers and hardware in the last six months. The Head of ICT stated that it is likely that the percentage of completion will sit at 70% for the next Committee update and that the IT Health Check remediations are well developed and the telephony piece, which represents a significant part of the planned objectives for this year, has been assigned a specific member of the ICT team to prioritise and progress.

d)            Citrix. A Member of the Committee asked why the Council has not moved away from the citrix environment. The Head of ICT explained that at this moment in time the intention is to stay with citrix. He shared that conversations with the other districts and boroughs have shown that most are still using citrix environments, so to move away to an alternative platform would be overly complex at this time. He highlighted that the ICT team are looking at alternatives as the Council may have need to change. He stated that there may be a change in model of use of the citrix environment, potentially moving to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18