Children's Services said to have "a poorly functioning IT system was taking up the precious time of frontline staff & senior managers"
Dear Somerset County Council,
Former Interim DCS Peter Lewis in this recent article states that:
"a poorly functioning IT system was taking up the precious time of frontline staff and senior managers.
"According to Lewis, the software used for child protection cases involved over–elaborate processes for dealing with cases. “The IT systems were never where they needed to be,” he says. 'It was such an arcane piece of technology'."
See more at: http://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/1147674...
===================================================================
Q1. Please give details of all applications software and their underlying IT platforms (including applications and underlying IT operating systems, data bases and infrastructure) supporting IT for SCC Children's Services, including the name of the supplier, the application name and the current version?
Q2. SCC IT is outsourced to South West One (85% owned by IBM) including technical support and the Help Desk - Is the IT Applications software (including applications and underlying IT operating systems, data bases and infrastructure) in Children's Services technically supported by South West One? If not who provides IT technical support?
Q3. SCC IT is outsourced to South West One (85% owned by IBM) including Business Analysis - Is the IT Applications software in Children's Services functionally supported by South West One? If not who provides IT functional support?
Q4. For Children's Services IT (including applications and underlying IT operating systems, data bases and infrastructure) , please provide a report from the IT Help Desk of all incidents/tickets/entries between April 2013 and end of September 2014 that resulted in loss of time for user[s] or applications being unavailable or stopped i.e. IT incidents that were moderate or high or severe in impact on IT service availability (including applications and underlying IT operating systems, data bases and infrastructure).
Yours faithfully,
Dave Orr
Internal Reference: 141151 - 141155
Date request received: 26/10/2014 and 27/10/2014
Date response due: 21/11/2014 and 24/11/2014
Dear Mr Orr,
Thank you for your five requests for information of which we are dealing
with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. We are currently dealing
with your requests and will be in touch shortly concerning disclosure of
the information you have requested.
Please be aware that your requests relate to the same subject and we are
able to aggregate requests that are similar. We will contact you if the
costs of dealing with these five requests will cost more than the
appropriate limit.
Whilst we will endeavour to send our responses to you by 21^st and 24^th
November 2014, we are currently experiencing a high level of requests and
we may not be able to meet the statutory deadline of 20 working days from
the receipt of your request. Please bear with us at this moment in time.
In the meantime if you have any further queries please contact me quoting
the reference numbers above.
Yours sincerely,
Information Request Administrator
Communications Team
Tel: 01823 355584,
Email: [1][email address]
Somerset County Council, Post Point: PP B3E 2, County Hall, Taunton, TA1
4DY
URL: [2]www.somerset.gov.uk
FOI Disclosure Log URL: [3]http://www.somerset.gov.uk/disclosurelog
This email, and any attachments is intended solely for the individual to whom
it is addressed. It may contain personal and / or sensitive material and should
be handled according to the principles of the Data Protection Act 1998. If this
email carries a protective marking of PROTECT or RESTRICTED in the
header it should be handled according to HMG guidelines, if not protectively
marked it can be regarded as UNCLASSIFIED.
If this Email has been misdirected, please notify the author immediately. If you
are not the intended recipient you must not disclose, distribute, copy, print or
rely on any of the information contained in it or attached, and all copies must
be deleted immediately.
Whilst we take reasonable steps to try to identify any software viruses, any
attachments to this email may nevertheless contain viruses which our anti
-virus software has failed to identify. You should therefore carry out your own
anti-virus checks before opening any documents. Somerset County Council
will not accept any liability for damage caused by computer viruses
emanating from any attachment or other document supplied with this email.
All GCSx traffic may be subject to recording and / or monitoring in accordance
with relevant legislation.
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. file:///tmp/www.somerset.gov.uk
3. http://www.somerset.gov.uk/disclosurelog
Internal Reference: 141154
Date request received: 27/10/2014
Date clarification requested: 29/10/2014
Dear Mr Orr
I am writing in respect of your recent request for information from
Somerset County Council, which is being dealt with under the provisions of
the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
We are unable to process your request, as we require clarification to help
identify the information you have requested.
In particular, could you please explain what you mean by functionally
supported, and what you mean by technically supported.
If you wish for us to continue to proceed with your request, please
contact me with the clarifying information as soon as possible, and no
later than the 24^th November 2014. If we do not receive the information
requested by this date, I will assume that you do not wish to continue
with this request and I will consider the request closed.
Yours sincerely
Information Request Administrator
Communications Team
Tel: 01823 355584
Email: [1][email address]
Somerset County Council, Post Point: PP B3E 2, County Hall, Taunton, TA1
4DY
URL: [2]www.somerset.gov.uk
FOI Disclosure Log URL: [3]http://www.somerset.gov.uk/disclosurelog
This email, and any attachments is intended solely for the individual to whom
it is addressed. It may contain personal and / or sensitive material and should
be handled according to the principles of the Data Protection Act 1998. If this
email carries a protective marking of PROTECT or RESTRICTED in the
header it should be handled according to HMG guidelines, if not protectively
marked it can be regarded as UNCLASSIFIED.
If this Email has been misdirected, please notify the author immediately. If you
are not the intended recipient you must not disclose, distribute, copy, print or
rely on any of the information contained in it or attached, and all copies must
be deleted immediately.
Whilst we take reasonable steps to try to identify any software viruses, any
attachments to this email may nevertheless contain viruses which our anti
-virus software has failed to identify. You should therefore carry out your own
anti-virus checks before opening any documents. Somerset County Council
will not accept any liability for damage caused by computer viruses
emanating from any attachment or other document supplied with this email.
All GCSx traffic may be subject to recording and / or monitoring in accordance
with relevant legislation.
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. file:///tmp/www.somerset.gov.uk
3. http://www.somerset.gov.uk/disclosurelog
Dear Information Request,
I disagree that the 5 requests are similar enough to be aggregated.
Two are IT related whereas the others arise from the sudden departure of Peter Lewis as Interim DCS and generic questions about contract letting & pro forma.
Please seek advice from Mr Grogan who has an extensive IT background:
Functional support is provided by Business Analysts as to whether the IT application package functionality meets business needs & how to design or re-engineer working practices & processes to fit in with the application package ; also to work with suppliers to influence improved/added functionality in future version releases; also with regard to service continuity should the IT fail or be unavailable - Business Analyst support may have a Request for Service process whereby the contractor keeps records of client requests.
Technical support goes through an IT Help Desk and each support request will be recorded & given a reference when a record is created on the Help Desk.
Yours sincerely,
Dave Orr
Internal Reference: 141154
Date request received: 27/10/2014
Date Clarification requested and received: 29/10/2014
Date response due: 26/11/2014
Dear Mr Orr
Thank you for providing us with clarification. I can confirm that I have now sent your request to the service area, and we will endeavour to send our response to you by 26 November 2014.
In the meantime if you have any further queries please contact me quoting the reference numbers above.
Yours Sincerely
Lucy Wilkins
Information Request Team Leader
Communications Team
Tel: 01823 359173
Email: [email address]
Somerset County Council, Post Point: PP B3E 2, County Hall, Taunton, TA1 4DY
URL: www.somerset.gov.uk
FOI Disclosure Log URL: http://www.somerset.gov.uk/disclosurelog
Internal Reference: 141154
Date request received: 27/10/2014
Clarification requested: 29/10/2014
Clarification received: 29/10/2014
Date response due: 26/11/2014
Date of response: 25/11/2014
Dear Mr Orr
I am writing in respect of your recent request for information from
Somerset County Council, which has been dealt with under the provisions of
the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
I can confirm that we do hold the information that you are seeking and we
are able to provide most of it to you.
Our response is detailed in bold format underneath your question as
follows.
Former Interim DCS Peter Lewis in this recent article states that:
"a poorly functioning IT system was taking up the precious time of
frontline staff and senior managers.
"According to Lewis, the software used for child protection cases involved
over–elaborate processes for dealing with cases. “The IT systems were
never where they needed to be,” he says. 'It was such an arcane piece of
technology'."
See more at:
[1]http://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/1147674...
===================================================================
Q1. Please give details of all applications software and their underlying
IT platforms (including applications and underlying IT operating systems,
data bases and infrastructure) supporting IT for SCC Children's Services,
including the name of the supplier, the application name and the current
version?
Answer: The software applications that relate to Somerset County Council
Children’s Services are Capita One, LCS (Protocol), Careworks, and
Trapeze.
Version numbers
Capita One version number 3.54
LCW Protocol version number 9
Careworks version number 9.8.0.0
Trapeze version number 10
Any further information regarding this software is available on Somerset
County Council’s website:
[2]http://www.somerset.gov.uk/information-a...
I can confirm that we hold information regarding the Operating system,
however we judge this information to be exempt under S38 (1), S40 (2) and
S43 (2) of the Freedom of Information Act, and we will not be providing it
to you.
Please see the exemption notes at the end of our reply, which explains the
exemptions applied and details the public interest test where applicable.
Q2. SCC IT is outsourced to South West One (85% owned by IBM) including
technical support and the Help Desk - Is the IT Applications software
(including applications and underlying IT operating systems, data bases
and infrastructure) in Children's Services technically supported by South
West One? If not who provides IT technical support?
Answer: Southwest One, and Somerset County Council.
Q3. SCC IT is outsourced to South West One (85% owned by IBM) including
Business Analysis - Is the IT Applications software in Children's Services
functionally supported by South West One? If not who provides IT
functional support?
Answer: Somerset County Council.
Q4. For Children's Services IT (including applications and underlying IT
operating systems, data bases and infrastructure) , please provide a
report from the IT Help Desk of all incidents/tickets/entries between
April 2013 and end of September 2014 that resulted in loss of time for
user[s] or applications being unavailable or stopped i.e. IT incidents
that were moderate or high or severe in impact on IT service availability
(including applications and underlying IT operating systems, data bases
and infrastructure).
Answer: Analysis of calls (Sev 1 & 2) logged by Children’s Social Care*
between June 2013 – Sept 2014.
* Please note that Children’s Social care is all that IT holds as a
category for Children’s.
Total of 32 calls, details as follows;
10x Access to Liquidlogic Children’s System (LCS)
2x Issues related to access to data stored on drives
2x Printer Issues
1x Access to wireless network
1x Users unable to access the system via Wyse terminals
2x Access to Microsoft Outlook
3x Access to Homefinders
3x Slow network response
3x Issue with access to Network
2x Access to Openscape/Telephony
2x User error
1x Intranet access
Please note that all calls were archived prior to June 2013, and I will
contact you further once I am in a position to confirm that we hold this
information.
Exemption Notes
As stated in our responses to your question above we are applying
exemptions S38, S40 and S43.
S38 (1) Health and Safety states Information is exempt information if its
disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to—
(a) endanger the physical or mental health of any individual, or
(b) endanger the safety of any individual.
S43 (2) Commercial interests states that information is exempt information
if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice
the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority
holding it).
Section 38 and Section 43 are qualified exemptions, and accordingly we had
to consider whether the public interest is in withholding the information
or in disclosing it.
The arguments for and against disclosure are detailed below.
For disclosure
Accountability and Transparency for the public to know what Somerset
County Council are spending public funds on.
Against disclosure
S38 Health and Safety: If our systems were to be unavailable, this could
be detrimental to a service user’s health as we would be unable to obtain
this information.
S43 Commercial Interests: Disclosure will reveal the details of Somerset
County Council’s hardware used for network related functions and would
therefore put the council at risk of a malicious attack.
S43 Commercial Interests: Disclosure will reveal the details of Somerset
County Council’s operating systems and would therefore put the council at
risk of a malicious attack.
Disclosure would also compromise Somerset County Council’s ability to
provide a service should the electronic systems be harmed.
The cost of system recovery if the system was to be hacked would be
detrimental to the local authority.
Decision
Having considered the public interest, Somerset County Council’s decision
is therefore to withhold the information.
Section 40 (2) (3)(a)(i)); Personal Information, which is an absolute
exemption, states that any information to which a request for information
relates is also exempt information if—
(a) it constitutes personal data which do not fall within subsection (1),
and
(b) either the first or the second condition below is satisfied.
(3) The first condition is –
(a) in a case where the information falls within any of paragraphs (a) to
(d) of the definition of “data” in section 1(1) of the Data Protection Act
1998, that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public
otherwise than under this Act would contravene –
(i) any of the data protection principles.
Our systems contain personal data, therefore if the system were to be
hacked this would breach individuals own rights under the Data Protection
Act.
If you feel your request has not been answered in sufficient detail or if
you wish to clarify the information given, please contact me and I will be
happy to address the issues you raise.
If you are not satisfied with the way in which your request has been dealt
with, or the information you have received, you can ask for an internal
review of our decision.
Please send your request to:
Peter Grogan, Information Governance Team, Client Services
Somerset County Council, County Hall, Taunton, Somerset, TA1 4DY or email
[3][email address]
Please quote the reference number 141154 in any future communications.
An internal review will then be carried out and we will write to you with
the results of our investigation. If you are not content with the outcome
of our review, you may then apply directly to the Information
Commissioner’s Office ([4]www.ico.gov.uk) for an appeal. The Information
commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner's Office,
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113
Finally, please be aware that your response will appear, without your
contact details, on the Council’s website at:
[5]http://www.somerset.gov.uk/disclosurelog
Yours sincerely,
Lucy Wilkins
Information Request Team Leader
Communications Team
Tel: 01823 355584,
Email: [6][email address]
Somerset County Council, Post Point: PP B3E 2, County Hall, Taunton, TA1
4DY
URL: [7]www.somerset.gov.uk
FOI Disclosure Log URL: [8]http://www.somerset.gov.uk/disclosurelog
This email, and any attachments is intended solely for the individual to whom
it is addressed. It may contain personal and / or sensitive material and should
be handled according to the principles of the Data Protection Act 1998. If this
email carries a protective marking of PROTECT or RESTRICTED in the
header it should be handled according to HMG guidelines, if not protectively
marked it can be regarded as UNCLASSIFIED.
If this Email has been misdirected, please notify the author immediately. If you
are not the intended recipient you must not disclose, distribute, copy, print or
rely on any of the information contained in it or attached, and all copies must
be deleted immediately.
Whilst we take reasonable steps to try to identify any software viruses, any
attachments to this email may nevertheless contain viruses which our anti
-virus software has failed to identify. You should therefore carry out your own
anti-virus checks before opening any documents. Somerset County Council
will not accept any liability for damage caused by computer viruses
emanating from any attachment or other document supplied with this email.
All GCSx traffic may be subject to recording and / or monitoring in accordance
with relevant legislation.
References
Visible links
1. http://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/1147674...
2. http://www.somerset.gov.uk/information-a...
3. mailto:[email address]
4. file:///tmp/www.ico.gov.uk
5. http://www.somerset.gov.uk/disclosurelog
6. mailto:[email address]
7. file:///tmp/www.somerset.gov.uk
8. http://www.somerset.gov.uk/disclosurelog
Dear Information Request,
Some clarification please.
Answer: The software applications that relate to Somerset County Council Children’s Services are Capita One, LCS (Protocol), Careworks, and Trapeze.
a) Can you please explain what each application listed above is used for (in high-level functionality terms). Note: This business-related functional information should be held in the IT Software asset Log but isn't recorded.
=====================================================
Is the IT Applications software (including applications and underlying IT operating systems, data bases and infrastructure) in Children's Services technically supported by South West One? If not who provides IT technical support?
Answer: Southwest One, and Somerset County Council
b) I understood that all IT staff remain in SW1. Can you please clarify and explain how the IT technical support responsibility is split between SW1 & SCC and who does what?
=====================================================
Q3. SCC IT is outsourced to South West One (85% owned by IBM) including Business Analysis - Is the IT Applications software in Children's Services functionally supported by South West One? If not who provides IT functional support?
Answer: Somerset County Council.
c1) How many SCC staff are engaged in providing functional support in Children's Services?
c2) Are none of the Business Analysts transferred into SW1 available for this work given that the unitary charge from SCC to IBM/SW1 pays for their services?
=====================================================
Q4. For Children's Services IT (including applications and underlying IT operating systems, data bases and infrastructure) , please provide a report from the IT Help Desk of all incidents/tickets/entries between April 2013 and end of September 2014 that resulted in loss of time for user[s] or applications being unavailable or stopped i.e. IT incidents that were moderate or high or severe in impact on IT service availability (including applications and underlying IT operating systems, data bases and infrastructure).
Answer: Analysis of calls (Sev 1 & 2) logged by Children’s Social Care* between June 2013 – Sept 2014.
d) Please explain the meaning/qualification of Sev 1 and Sev 2 calls?
Yours sincerely,
Dave Orr
Dear Mr Orr
Further to your follow up questions please see our response below. Please
note that the majority of these questions are not asking for recorded
information, therefore these do not fall under the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act. We have stated this where applicable.
Follow up one
Answer: The software applications that relate to Somerset County Council
Children’s Services are Capita One, LCS (Protocol), Careworks, and
Trapeze.
a) Can you please explain what each application listed above is used for
(in high-level functionality terms). Note: This business-related
functional information should be held in the IT Software asset Log but
isn't recorded.
Response one
This is not a request for recorded information, and we have therefore
answered the question as business as usual.
Capita One: Case Management System for Education
LCS: Case Management System for Children’s Social Care
Careworks: Case Management System for the Youth Offending Team
Trapeze: Case Management System for Transport
Follow up Two
=====================================================
Is the IT Applications software (including applications and underlying IT
operating systems, data bases and infrastructure) in Children's Services
technically supported by South West One? If not who provides IT technical
support?
Answer: Southwest One, and Somerset County Council
b) I understood that all IT staff remain in SW1. Can you please clarify
and explain how the IT technical support responsibility is split between
SW1 & SCC and who does what?
Response two
This is not a request for recorded information, and we have therefore
answered the question as business as usual.
Technical support for Capita One was never novated to the Southwest One
Contract, therefore the Somerset County Council staff who provide
technical support relates to this system only.
Follow up three
=====================================================
Q3. SCC IT is outsourced to South West One (85% owned by IBM) including
Business Analysis - Is the IT Applications software in Children's Services
functionally supported by South West One? If not who provides IT
functional support?
Answer: Somerset County Council.
c1) How many SCC staff are engaged in providing functional support in
Children's Services?
c2) Are none of the Business Analysts transferred into SW1 available for
this work given that the unitary charge from SCC to IBM/SW1 pays for their
services?
Response three
In relation to C1, we are unable to tell you exactly how many staff are
functionally supporting systems within Children’s services. This is
because functional support is provided by the teams responsible for the
software. Functional support is designed in a way so that teams can
manage the software without intervention from ICT.
In response to C2, this is not a request for recorded information, and we
have therefore answered the question as business as usual.
Business analysts would not be responsible for providing functional IT
support as this is the responsibility of the teams within Children’s
services.
Follow up four
=====================================================
Q4. For Children's Services IT (including applications and underlying IT
operating systems, data bases and infrastructure) , please provide a
report from the IT Help Desk of all incidents/tickets/entries between
April 2013 and end of September 2014 that resulted in loss of time for
user[s] or applications being unavailable or stopped i.e. IT incidents
that were moderate or high or severe in impact on IT service availability
(including applications and underlying IT operating systems, data bases
and infrastructure).
Answer: Analysis of calls (Sev 1 & 2) logged by Children’s Social Care*
between June 2013 – Sept 2014.
d) Please explain the meaning/qualification of Sev 1 and Sev 2 calls?
Response four
Severity one, is critical and means critical system(s) broken.
Severity two is high and means normal business activities disrupted.
If you have any further questions or queries please contact me.
Alternatively if you are unhappy with our response in relation to those
questions that fall under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act,
please request an internal review from Peter Grogan, Information
Governance Team, Somerset County Council, County Hall, Taunton, Somerset,
TA1 4DY or email [1][email address].
Please quote the reference number 141154 in any future communications.
An internal review will then be carried out and we will write to you with
the results of our investigation. If you are not content with the outcome
of our review, you may then apply directly to the Information
Commissioner’s Office (www.ico.gov.uk) for an appeal. The Information
commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner's Office,
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113
Yours sincerely
Lucy Wilkins
Information Request Team Leader
Communications Team
Tel: 01823 359173
Email: [2][email address]
Somerset County Council, Post Point: PP B3E 2, County Hall, Taunton, TA1
4DY
URL: [3]www.somerset.gov.uk
FOI Disclosure Log URL: [4]http://www.somerset.gov.uk/disclosurelog
This email, and any attachments is intended solely for the individual to whom
it is addressed. It may contain personal and / or sensitive material and should
be handled according to the principles of the Data Protection Act 1998. If this
email carries a protective marking of PROTECT or RESTRICTED in the
header it should be handled according to HMG guidelines, if not protectively
marked it can be regarded as UNCLASSIFIED.
If this Email has been misdirected, please notify the author immediately. If you
are not the intended recipient you must not disclose, distribute, copy, print or
rely on any of the information contained in it or attached, and all copies must
be deleted immediately.
Whilst we take reasonable steps to try to identify any software viruses, any
attachments to this email may nevertheless contain viruses which our anti
-virus software has failed to identify. You should therefore carry out your own
anti-virus checks before opening any documents. Somerset County Council
will not accept any liability for damage caused by computer viruses
emanating from any attachment or other document supplied with this email.
All GCSx traffic may be subject to recording and / or monitoring in accordance
with relevant legislation.
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. mailto:[email address]
3. file:///tmp/www.somerset.gov.uk
4. http://www.somerset.gov.uk/disclosurelog
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