Agenda item

Presentation by Chief Financial Officer.  (Copy to follow)

5.0         DELIVERY OF THE IT STRATEGY AND PLAN WITHIN SCOTTISH BORDERS

5.1         With reference to paragraph 2 of the Minute of 30 November 2017, the Chief Financial Officer was present to report on the IT Strategy and Plan within the Scottish Borders.  Mr Robertson explained that the presentation would focus on the Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) system and the vision for the Digital Customer Access (DCA) Portal, with no commercial detail from the contract being put forward in this public session.  The CGI contract was a £90m plus investment over a 13 year period with the potential for extension which would provide a platform for change and transform the Council’s IT function.  The contract deliverables included the delivery of a new ERP System, a new DCA solution, a full refresh of the Council’s hardware, protection against technical obsolescence, Cyber security resilience and market leading innovation.  CGI would also set up a new Borders Service Centre, with up to 200 jobs over 5 years.  Mr Robertson went on to advise that what had been delivered to date with CGI included major contract outsourcing; IT resilience, stability, security and refresh; and a major upgrade of the Council’s complicated and antiquated IT infrastructure. There had been issues with implementing the ERP system but rectification was largely complete and an upgrade to Milestone 7.2 was planned.  The DCA  project had been re-scoped and specification agreed.  The Council’s previous financial information system (F.I.S), HR/Payroll System (Resourcelink) and Purchasing System (Proactis) had all been replaced with a single integrated Finance and HR System.  The benefits of having the one system included self-service, standardisation, integration and “one version of the truth”.  Mr Robertson reported that some of the lessons learned included addressing deficiencies in the post go live environment; retaining specialist consultants as system architects; issues identified with build post rectified by CGI at their cost, although SBC had put in staff time; and the detailed specification for the DCA project was now being developed jointly between Council staff and CGI.   Not insisting on test system prior to going live turned out to be a significant shortcoming, and insufficient  focus on end to end testing of processes prior to going live had resulted in testing being carried out in a live environment.  Mr Robertson reassured Members that CGI had met the costs of rectification, although the Council had paid CGI for further enhancements not in scope in the original contract.  When the contract had been signed, it was thought that Edinburgh City Council would be the pathfinder for the development work, but SBC moved forward more quickly so SBC had implemented ERP and Edinburgh had not yet done so.  There had been too much focus on April 2017 go live date and an over reliance on the third party integration specialist (Agilysis) who had not provided the complete overview of all the workstreams involved as had been expected.

5.2         The Service Director Customer & Communities advised that in terms of DCA, this was a significant project alongside ERP in the contract.  The original proposal for the digital platform for DCA was not fit for purpose and had to be re-designed.  The contract with Agilysis had been terminated and Council staff had worked together with CGI staff to arrive at a new solution which was about to be agreed.  The aim was to create a digital platform that customers would want to use, although the Council would still have face to face and telephone contact for those who could not or would not want to go online. A report on the Customer Strategy was due to be presented to Council in September .  The key principles of DCA were the provision of a suite of different products, joined up in the background, but giving customers a digital front door with a 360º view: an example being, if someone reported a pothole then they would hear back on what was happening to it.  The difference would be keeping people up to date and letting them know what was being done, trying not to pass people between Departments within the Council.  The future DCA portal vision was to have Council back office systems linked up seamlessly, with further links to the national patient portal and Scottish national account.  As a customer coming in to the system, the individual would have a range of options and would only have to input their details once.  It was anticipated that DCA would take a year to implement this to full effect for customers.  The Chairman referred to some detail within the private report to Council in March 2016 and the targeted savings associated with digital transformation.  Savings of £1.5m had been anticipated this year but only £600k had been achieved and the gap needed to be filled.  Mr Robertson explained that there had been delays in the implementation of both ERP and DCA, although a number of savings had been achieved.  The scale of the Council’s ambition for savings had not yet been realised but officers were still endeavouring to deliver these within the Financial Plan expectations, identifying alternative savings where necessary.  The impact of the contract was included in financial monitoring reports  to the Executive Committee, although there were no separate monitoring report specifically on the CGI contract.  CGI was currently working on the Service Centre location in the Borders, employing Modern Apprentices, unbundling IT structures and working on schools, with the latter commitment to schools being met. 

5.3         In response to Members’ questions, Mrs Craig advised that the upgrade to the Confirm system (roads management) was included as part of the CGI contract; this upgrade would then provide a link to the Councils’ website which would map where potholes were and their status.  Mr Robertson confirmed that CGI had been included in the national procurement framework with the contract led by Edinburgh Council – this had saved SBC c.£1.8m costs in arranging a separate tender.  Two companies – CGI and Capita – had been involved in the original bids with CGI the winning bid.  With regard to the delivery date for the live ERP system, there had been contractual agreements between CGI and Agilysis to deliver on that date and while there had been assurances from both companies that the live system would work, in reality it was not ready.  There had been elements of parallel running with some of the old systems e.g. payroll tests had run for 3 months, but the option to parallel run with all systems had not been given to the Council.  The reality was the company was building the system as it was being brought in so no test system was available.  Mr Robertson gave assurances to Members that despite what had happened, it had to be recognised that the Council had gone live with a very complex network and had done so before 2 other much larger Councils which were still trying to make the necessary changes. 

MEMBER

Councillor H. Scott left the meeting during consideration of the above item of business. 

DECISION

AGREED:

(a)       to note the update on the work underway as part of the CGI contract;

(b)       that Members would check the private report on the ICT Review which had been considered by Council in March 2016 and send any questions to the Chief Financial Officer and Service Director Customer and Communities in advance of another meeting of Audit and Scrutiny which would consider further  the delivery of the Council’s IT Strategy and Plan.