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BT Partnership - Continuous Improvement


Finance & Resources Committee

16 June 2009

1 Purpose of report

1.1 To present plans developed in consultation with service departments for improvements over the next three years of the Council's partnership with BT. The report also highlights improvements made in the last year following formal endorsement of the extension of the partnership to 2016 as approved by Council on 21 February 2008

2 Background

2.1 The Council approved renegotiated terms of its partnership with BT in February 2006. In summary, based on successful delivery of a specified change programme over a two year period then £22.3m of cash-releasing efficiency savings would be released and the Council would extend its relationship with BT until 2016.

2.2 The change programme included refresh of both corporate and school desktop estates, new processes for managing user requests and improvements to governance and working arrangements. In parallel, the Council agreed one-off investment to refresh desktop computers within schools which were owned by the Council rather than BT.

2.3 The programme was to be judged both by delivery and results of these specific projects but also by improved user and senior management satisfaction with the ICT service.

2.4 On the 21 February 2008, the Council reviewed the success of the programme and endorsed extension of the partnership to 2016. It was agreed that BT and the Council should build on the success of the arrangements in place over the previous two years and formalise a further programme of continuous improvement.

3 Improvement Programme

3.1 Detailed consultation has been undertaken with departments and users over the last year. A programme has been designed focused around five themes:

Leadership, including reviewing the effectiveness of governance arrangements, communications and organisation within the Council
Strategy & Planning, building and refining the framework with departments on the basis of the ICT Strategy and Work Programme developed over the last year. This will allow BT to more proactively manage emerging ICT opportunities within departments. Proposals for Innovation sessions and targeted business consultancy will support departments to maximise the value of their ICT investment
Infrastructure, upgrading the core network and data centre to manage obsolescence. Planning for desktop refresh to ensure value of investments are maximised
Process Improvement, continuing the development of service processes to align to international best practice standard ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) and building on the success of the Joint Programme Office which provides oversight over project delivery
Service Enhancement, refining the central support charging model within the Council and billing processes with BT. Reviewing with departments their business continuity plans to ensure contracted service levels meet requirements.

3.2 Appendix 1 provides a list of the activities proposed against each of the themes over the next three years. Formal plans and specific measurable targets for these improvements will now be defined and reported as part of regular six monthly performance reports to Committee.

3.3 In overall terms, the design of the improvement programme requires to deliver value for both partners. In the detailed design and planning of particular workstreams this will be considered. In particular, It should be noted that significant unbudgeted investment will require to be addressed by the Council to manage obsolescence of ICT equipment in schools.

3.4 Over the last year substantial progress has been made against these themes including:

approval of a Council-wide ICT Strategy and both Corporate and Departmental Work Programmes

delivery of a series of Innovation Sessions with departments to consider the potential of new technologies to improve service delivery and drive efficiencies

substantial consultancy investment by BT to ensure departments gain value from ICT investments and to support the development of business cases

significant investment by BT to upgrade the Council's network and refresh infrastructure in the data centre supporting business critical applications

further improvement of the change and service request processes with a reduction from 24% to 16% in the backlog of work from January 2008

creation of an Information Asset Register for the Council and an Information Security Awareness Campaign for Council staff

3.5 The Continuous Improvement Programme will seek to build on these successes but also provide a structured programme to communicate with ICT service users on planned development of the service.

4 Financial Implications

4.1 The programme will largely be delivered within the existing resources of the partnership. However there are significant unbudgeted financial implications to manage obsolesence of ICT equipment in schools owned by the Council over the period to 2016.

5 Recommendations

5.1 It is recommended that Finance & Resources Committee:

(i) endorse the plans to refine and build on the model of partnership working with BT; and,

(ii) note the progress made in continuous improvement over the last year.

Jim Inch Director of Corporate Services

Appendices	Appendix 1 - Improvement Programme

Contact/tel

Wards affected	All wards

Background Papers

APPENDIX 1

PARTNERSHIP TRANSFORMATION PROGRAMME II DRAFT

Theme	Activity	Progress to date	Planned 2009/10	Planned 2010+
Leadership	Communications Plan	Communications Plan for 2009/10 agreed by JMT but this will require to be updated once overall work programme is agreed.	Delivery of communications plans including Senior Manager Event planned for May
Leadership	Review effectiveness of governance arrangements	Head of E-Gov has met HoS who value group. BT consultancy review underway.	Complete review and present proposals to Transformation Board.
Leadership	Undertake a review of retained ICT organisation across the Council	Initial assessment undertaken and consultation on terms of reference with SCSG and Trade Unions.	Complete review and present proposals to Transformation Board and Trade Unions.

Theme	Activity	Progress to date	Planned 2009/10	Planned 2010+
Strategy	Develop ICT Work Programme from SPOW/ICT Strategy	ICT Strategy approved by SCSG and Elected Member Sounding Board. Work is being taken forward to document work programme for SCSG on 22 April.	Communicate and consult on plans prior to presentation to F&R on 13/6. Refine and review for 2010/11.
Strategy	Develop Innovation within the Partnership	Innovation Sessions have taken place in relation to Sustainability and Telecare. Workstyle business case in preparation.	Further Innovation Sessions particularly on City Vision 2030 + Visit to Adastral. Need to move one idea from forum to real delivery project. Consider potential of infrastructure refresh.
Strategy	Additional consultancy	Substantial consultancy provided for Swift, JV, Workstyle, Customer Services, E-HR, C&F Practice Team projects	Consider how consultancy can be taken forward as due to lack of investment by Council in 2008/9 no contractual requirement for support from BT

Theme	Activity	Progress to date	Planned 2009/10	Planned 2010+
Infrastructure	Desktop Refresh	Still some legacy issues with 150 machines outstanding from Refresh 1. Workstyle analysis will support next refresh being tailored to need.	Detailed design of corporate refresh.	Implementation of corporate refresh.
Infrastructure	Learning & Teaching Estate Refresh	Proposal developed by BT to meet reduced budget approved by Council. VfM assessment required.	Need to undertake detailed design work for refreshed estate within an agreed financial envelope.	Implementation of Learning & Teaching refresh.
Infrastructure	Datacentre and networks Refresh	Significant investment programme underway by BT in 21^st Century MAN, F12K replacement and new SAN.	Need to agree plans and upgrade data centre infrastructure	Implementation of plans.
Infrastructure	Bandwidth increases for schools to reflect increased demand	All high schools and 12 primaries have been provided upgraded bandwidth	Upgrade of LANs in primaries through GLOW project. Provide rates for further upgrades to be funded through DSM.
Process Improvement	Targeted Improvement in Change Process	Plans have been agreed by JMT for improvement and are being closely monitored. Communicated to Department ICT Steering Groups.	Implementation and monitoring of results.
Process Improvement	Development partnership processes around capacity management to reflect ITIL best practice	Terms of Reference for Demand and Capacity Group agreed. First meeting taken place. Capacity plan for infrastructure upgrades prepared by BT.	Extend approach and formalise demand and capacity planning with reports to SCSG and JMT.

Theme	Activity	Progress to date	Planned 2009/10	Planned 2010+
Process Improvement	Develop Partnership processes around management of incidents	Formal incident management process in place with improvement actions identified which are then tracked by JMT.	Continually refine process
Process Improvement	Development partnership processes around business continuity	Creation of the Information Asset Register has provided a formal basis for understanding Council-wide the risks and to develop a programme of consultation with departments.	E-Gov will work with critical business areas to understand their business continuity plans and test that partnership agreement and SLAs meet their requirements.	Continued work with departments.
Process Improvement	Information Security processes to be updated to reflect best practice	Information Asset Register created. Security Awareness Programme underway. Information Governance Group remit agreed.	Agree proposals for laptop encryption and USB Device Control subject to funding. Further awareness programme. Information Governance Group meeting regularly.
Process Improvement	Arrangements to obtain better evidence of actual benefits realisation from business cases	BT have provided training to staff in E-Government and departments on benefits realisation.	Ensure all Project Boards focus on monitoring and tracking of benefits case.
Process Improvement	Refine and improve the effectiveness of the Joint Programme Management Office	PMO reporting and assurance taking place on monthly basis to JMT.	Refine reporting and assurance processes. Adopt model into Council Standing Orders as per recent Construction Projects report.
Service Improvement	Refinement of Granularity of Core Bill	Proposals agreed by E-Government and BT.	E-Government and Finance need to realign of central support charges.

Theme	Activity	Progress to date	Planned 2009/10	Planned 2010+
Service Improvement	Same Day Fix on Corporate Desktop	In practice, 90% of desktop fixes are delivered within 24 hours.	Formalise with new desktop SLA with service credits only applying if X% are not met within target during period. Actual % to be agreed.
Service Improvement	Reshape current support arrangements	New support arrangements in place around Oracle Financials and Web. Contact Central decommissioned.	Replace Hyperwave platform.
Service improvement	Consider potencial for increased SLAs / continuity plans for critical services	Investments in data centre by BT provide the opportunity for enhanced continuity services to be commissioned by the Council in future.	Through reviews with business areas identify within resource constraints what can be achieved.
Service Improvement	Reshape current arrangements for print to secure best value	BT have provided a proposal for combining Data Centre Printing and CEC Reprographic facility to deliver significant efficiency savings. Proposals for Online payslips developed.	CEC considering proposals but parallel work being undertaken to improve print within Revs and Bens service and to simplify Gateshead operation. Online payslips implemented.