Agenda item

To follow.

1.1          The Chair welcomed Mr Dickie, Mr O’ Sullivan and Mr Scully from CGI to the meeting.  There had been circulated copies of the report by Director Strategic Commissioning and Partnerships that presented key information with respect to the CGI contract for the final two quarters of 2021.  It provided Elected Members with key information on the governance of the contract, updated information on the transformation programme being delivered with CGI, key performance information with respect to the service delivery of the contract and a note of key issues associated with contract management, which included change requests signed in the quarter.

1.2          Mr Byers advised that key control boards had taken place and were subject to minutes and audit.  All governance arrangements were marked ‘green’ in quarters three and four.  With regards to the Transformation Programme, development work had been undertaken between senior officers and CGI to develop the strategic digital roadmap which was aligned to the corporate plan and financial strategy.  A number of projects were partway through completion, while the Mobile Front Line Workers project, to give lone workers technology for protection, was entering phase 2.  Mr Dickie advised that upon the CGI contract extension, consultation took place on the strategic digital roadmap incorporating cost-saving and identifying good work.  Work on Mobile Front Line Workers would support lone workers with recording timesheets and expenses and to also provide duty of care support for care workers.  Outputs for the information hub were due to be approved and the first outputs due to take place in June 2022.  Further detail was provided on progress with Transformation POAP.  Mr O'Sullivan advised that Corporate SIP Implementation progress was marked as ‘red’ as BT were delayed with changing fibre and modernising telephony which continued from delays faced in this area of work following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.  The Office 365 workstream progress was also marked ‘red’ following issues with migrated data and Access Database links.  This workstream was to be re-scoped and incorporated within the Transformation programme following completion of the Database project review.  Digital Customer Access had been due to undergo a re-plan with intent to be incorporated within prioritised projects.  CGI advised that this was in a positioning of knowing how to take forward.  With regards to the bulk Print project having been marked as ‘red’ to then being marked as ‘complete’ this had been due to Xerox differentiating between national and international post.  Solutions from Xerox were not regarded as suitable therefore the workstream was closed off while an alternative programme would be determined.  Councillor Thornton-Nicol raised inconsistencies with regards to End User Device – Curricular workstream with issues raised in Newtown Community Wing and there not being access to the devices.  Mr Dickie advised that this may have been due to sites being offline with sporadic IT use from caretakers and that he would follow up on issues raised.  Technical issues had been affecting the MacBooks workstream however support was in place and the workstream was due to be closed.  The AV Solution workstream had been affected by supply chain of components issues.

1.3          In response to a question about cybersecurity in relation to the international environment, Mr Dickie advised that the issue was being built into the strategic roadmap.  CGI provided security services.  Public Services Network accreditation had been going well and reaccreditation was due for April 2022.  Mr Byers acknowledged the issue of cybersecurity had been heightened and that regular meetings had been taking place with the Security Manager for appropriate patches and policies to be in place.

1.4          It was noted that the Smart Routing workstream had been paused as work was taking place with the Director Infrastructure and Environment with regards to widening the scope of the project beyond waste services to determine a Council-wide solution.  The Weighbridge workstream was due to enter the implement phase on February 2022.  The Monitoring and Tracking workstream was cancelled due to solutions not being obtained for the project.  Comino Performance and Uniform workstream was on hold while feedback was being assessed.  High School WAN workstream had been affected by capacity issues related to an incremental rise in portable devices using the wireless network.

1.5          Mr Scully presented updates on the Service Delivery section of the report.  It had been regarded that there was excellent service performance continuing over quarter four.  Service Desk performance had met all key performance indicator targets in January and Incident and Service Request backlog remained under control.  An IT Health Check had been carried out across the Council estate to provide a report for submission to the Cabinet Office as part of Public Services Network re-certification and remediation had been progressing steadily.  The Happy Signals pilot had been continuing to drive user satisfaction insight on completed Service Activity (incidents and work orders) which had initiated a number of key Service Improvement workstreams to address feedback provided.  Target User Response Rate had been averaging 2% and had risen to 11.78%.

1.6          Extreme weather events including Storm Arwen took place over quarter four which required support from CGI for Emergency Planning and to recover sites affected by power loss and subsequent technical issues.  Challenges had persisted following the rollout of the Enterprise Mobility platform to SB Cares staff where technical and process challenges required additional Service Support to ensure handsets continued to be available for staff.  Initial support challenges had been resolved and further improvement works were continuing.  Issues had been encountered regarding the fulfilment of Xerox printer toner replacements due to worldwide toner and consumables shortages.

1.7          Challenges in Service Performance had been encountered that originated following the return of pupils to schools in late August resulting in a significantly large volume of logged calls and the formation of a service backlog.  User satisfaction fell below the key performance indicator target of 80%.  Mr Scully noted that was the second year in a row that a backlog formed due to the return to schools and was not acceptable for CGI.

1.8          With regards to the Commercial and Contract Overview, it was advised that the Tweedbank Office build was due to be completed by January 2022 and that the lease was due to be finalised.  The CGI fit-out and habitation of the office was scheduled for July 2022.  CGI employed 68 people in the Scottish Borders and recruitment was planned for five graduate positions, three graduate apprentices entering from high school, four project delivery roles, 23 service desk members to be based in Tweedbank and ten test automation engineers to be based in Tweedbank.

1.9          With regard to paragraph 4 of the Minute of the Meeting held on 23 November 2021 Councillor Thornton-Nicol requested an update to her question on the costs of procured HP monitors compared to the model’s sale value on the market.

DECISION

NOTED the update.