1. business and industrial

Business ICT Strategy
2013-2016
Version 1.0
April 2013
CONTENTS
1
2
3
4
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 3
1.1
Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016 ............................................................................................ 3
1.2
ICT Vision................................................................................................................................. 3
1.3
Objectives of the Business IT Strategy 2013-2016.................................................................. 4
1.4
ICT Services in South Gloucestershire Council ........................................................................ 4
1.5
Corporate ICT Services ............................................................................................................ 6
ON THE ROAD TO 2016: RECENT AND EMERGING BUSINESS AND ICT TRENDS............................. 7
2.1
The role of ICT in supporting the Council’s Vision and Core Values ....................................... 7
2.2
Economic environment ........................................................................................................... 8
2.3
Technology enablers for the Business ICT Strategy ................................................................ 8
2.4
Environmental Sustainability ................................................................................................ 10
2.5
UK Government ICT Standards and Guidance ...................................................................... 10
2.6
Aligning with the Council’s core values ................................................................................ 11
2.7
ICT strategic themes ............................................................................................................. 12
2.8
Delivering the Council’s priorities ......................................................................................... 13
2.9
Optimising ICT service delivery ............................................................................................. 14
AN ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE BASED APPROACH ..................................................................... 15
3.1
Architectural Principles ......................................................................................................... 16
3.2
Developing the Business ICT Strategy ................................................................................... 18
3.3
Recommended strategic project portfolio............................................................................ 20
LEADERSHIP AND GOVERNANCE .................................................................................................. 23
4.1
Strategic alignment ............................................................................................................... 23
4.2
ICT Target Operating Model (TOM) ...................................................................................... 23
4.3
ICT skills and staff development ........................................................................................... 23
4.4
Service management framework .......................................................................................... 24
4.5
Information and security management ................................................................................ 25
4.6
Vendor management ............................................................................................................ 25
4.7
Business ICT Strategy governance ........................................................................................ 26
4.8
Transparent cost of technology services .............................................................................. 27
5
STRATEGY INTO ACTION 2013-2014 ............................................................................................. 28
6
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 30
South Gloucestershire Council Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016
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1
1.1 Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016
South Gloucestershire Council’s vision is to achieve the best for our residents and their communities,
ensuring that South Gloucestershire will always be “a great place to live and work”.
Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) has a critical and expanding role in enabling the
Council’s ambition, by providing both radically different ways for customers to access and use
services, and encouraging new internal working practices which can improve both service quality
and staff productivity whilst reducing the overall operating costs of the Council.
The purpose of this document is to define the South Gloucestershire Council ICT Strategy for the
years 2012 to 2016. It builds upon work already undertaken and the key principles of how ICT can be
used to effectively support the delivery of the Corporate Plan objectives. The ICT Strategy sets out a
fresh approach to the provision of corporate ICT services within the Council (excluding the provision
of ICT Services for Schools).
This strategy is intended to be flexible so that ICT developments are not constrained by it but can
change in line with advances in technology and changes in Council priorities, whilst still having a
clear framework within which to operate. It aims to provide a framework for the delivery of
innovative services to our customers, to build a reliable and resilient business driven technical
infrastructure which is both cost-effective and sustainable, and to keep environmental costs to a
minimum.
An organisation-wide project was established to define this strategy. Its board had senior
representation across all departments and a programme of workshops and analysis ensured ICT
users were appropriately consulted.
1.2 ICT Vision
“To provide trusted, agile, innovative and robust value-for-money ICT solutions that
enable the organisation to be effective and productive – putting the customer at the
heart of all we do.”
South Gloucestershire Council Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016
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1.3 Objectives of the Business IT Strategy 2013-2016
1. Define and agree how ICT will be used effectively and efficiently as an enabler in the delivery
of the Council’s business objectives
2. Define a business system and technical architecture and a measurable roadmap to deliver
common use corporate and service specific capabilities
3. Set out a target operating model to deliver effective and efficient operational services to
agreed service levels
4. Define how IT innovation and agility will maximise associated benefits
5. Define an ICT governance model to enable the strategy to be applied and implemented
6. Enable and deliver a step change in ICT culture across both the service departments and the
ICT function
7. Underpin the Business ICT Strategy, with a rolling 4 year portfolio of business enabling ICT
change projects
1.4 ICT Services in South Gloucestershire Council
1.4.1 About the Council
South Gloucestershire Council is a unitary Council with above average performance and high levels
of resident satisfaction. It is an organisation that performs in the top quartile of Councils with
funding in the bottom quartile.
South Gloucestershire has a rich natural and cultural heritage. It is a mixed urban and rural authority
of great diversity located in the South West of England. It covers 53,665 hectares.
The district has a population of 264,800 and this is projected to increase by 20% to 308,100 by 2026.
60% of the population live in built areas, 19% in markets towns and the remaining 20% live in the
rural areas. This provides an interesting dynamic given 80% of the geographical area is rural and only
20% urban.
South Gloucestershire is relatively affluent but there are pockets of deprivation. The district has seen
substantial levels of development with 62,000 jobs and 21,000 homes since 1991.
Like all local authorities, South Gloucestershire is facing intense financial pressures. Funding from
government will reduce by at least six per cent each year to 2017/18, with similar sums possible for
a number of years after this.
South Gloucestershire Council Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016
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1.4.2 Provision of Council Services
The dispersed nature of the Council’s communities means that service delivery can be costly and
complex which places additional pressure on the Council to strike a balance between competing
customer demands and to be clear about priorities.
The Council provides many of the key public services required to meet the needs and expectations of
the growing population. The Council educates over 58,000 children and young people in 114 schools
as well as caring for 170 children and young people who are looked after. The Council helps more
than 4,850 older people and those with disabilities to continue living in their own homes.
This is in addition to protecting the rich environment and diverse communities whilst ensuring that
the aspirations of the residents for quality jobs and homes are met. From children’s services to
community care, from planning the development of the Council’s infrastructures to strengthening
the prevention and reduction of crime, from waste collection to environmental protection, South
Gloucestershire Council provides over 150 public services which are vital to the residents of the area.
Excluding schools, 3,100 staff members are engaged in providing these services. Additionally an
increasing proportion of our services are being provided by external partners.
In order to make South Gloucestershire ‘a great place to live and work’ the core values of South
Gloucestershire Council, as detailed in the Council Strategy 2012/16 are:
Excellence for our customers and communities;
Strong Community Leadership;
Valuing our Staff;
Engaging with our partners;
Equality of opportunity for all;
Protecting the Environment for future generations; and
Using our resources to deliver Value for Money.
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1.5 Corporate ICT Services
The shape of the Council’s corporate ICT service is undergoing a transformation that commenced in
late 2011 as a response to the changing business requirements of the Council, changes to the way
services need to be delivered to the community and on-going cost pressures.
Over the last few years there has been increasing emphasis on flexibility and agility in the way the
Council delivers services and ICT have put in place a number of supporting initiatives; in particular
the Smarter Working initiative launched in 2009 which has seen a shift of 20%-30% of staff now
working remotely on a regular basis. This service development work is on-going and ICT is
committed to continuing to develop new and innovative ways to meet the requirements of the
business and support it in delivering the Council’s core values as set out above.
The corporate ICT function supports the 3,100 staff engaged in providing services and there are
currently approximately 4,000 desktops, laptops, thin client or tablet devices. There are around 30
key business systems and almost 600 business productivity applications in regular use. There are
three primary IT locations and around 30 branch and satellite offices.
In addition, the Schools IT service provides ICT support services to 114 schools in the Council area
and makes use of the corporate IT Data Centres and Network services. The Business ICT Strategy
2013-2016 anticipates increasing co-operation between Corporate ICT and Schools IT services with a
joint approach to ICT service provision whenever appropriate.
The major restructure of the provision of corporate ICT services was delivered as part of the
Council’s wider transformation programme. The overriding aim of the new ICT organisational
structure is to maximise customer service and work more effectively to manage and deliver IT
enabled business change. The service will continue to provide professional IT advice and technical
support to all areas of the organisation including Councillors, other Council departments and
partners.
The Business ICT Strategy will shape and drive the on-going ICT transformation journey over the
coming period of 2013-2016 and will build on the established foundations to meet the new and
emerging business requirements.
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2
In developing the Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016 a number of enabling or underpinning factors
were considered as follows:
The current and emerging trends within the ICT industry and how these have been
successfully adopted in other businesses;
The role that the ICT service has to play in supporting and enabling the Council’s stated
vision and core values;
The impact of the current economic landscape;
The requirements for environmental sustainability; and
Current and emerging ICT standards and guidance from central government.
2.1 The role of ICT in supporting the Council’s Vision and Core Values
Localism, regional partnership and policy development, the emergence of city mayors, Police Crime
Commissioners, changes to the National Health Service and other national and regional
developments demand closer working with our neighbouring Councils, other public sector bodies,
the voluntary sector and national government.
The wider Council Strategy 2013-2016 emphasises our ethos of one Council with “..everyone
working in an integrated way..” and our “..culture of collaborative working”.
This need for ever closer collaboration places demands on the Business ICT Strategy to provide the
right systems and services to support and deliver this vision.
The period 2013-2016 will see the Council face continuing challenges such as:
The continued reshaping of the organisation;
Further reductions in available budget for services;
Increased pressure for efficiencies and productivity gains; and
Greater requirement for mobility in delivering front line services.
In this more collaborative, distributed environment, understanding the link between Council policy
and investment decisions and outcomes for customers will become even more important. The
Council will require strong ICT Governance processes to shape the investment decisions going
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forward, maximise the return and value for money, and support the organisation in meeting its
objectives. To achieve these goals the Council will require a step change in culture moving to an
approach where an organisation-wide view is always applied to ICT decision making.
The Council will also require strong information management processes and systems including
collaboration tools, social media tools, and greater integration and interoperability across the ICT
landscape, to support not just management reporting but the overall goal of ever more integrated
working.
2.2 Economic environment
The forecasted economic environment over the period 2013-2016 is expected to place further
pressures on budgets, back office services and central service overheads.
The Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016 will drive the more efficient use of IT assets through the use of
the Total Cost of Ownership model, ensuring that the ICT cost base demonstrates good value for
money whilst delivering high quality services. This approach calculates the end-to-end whole life
costs of IT Services – from procuring an application, through to data storage, desktop operating
system, network access, maintenance and support, security, and the decommissioning and disposal
of IT assets.
This will require increased rigour in the assessment of change requests for ICT investments and the
implementation of formal governance around the delivery of the Business ICT Strategy.
2.3 Technology enablers for the Business ICT Strategy
A number of enabling factors will support the delivery of the Business ICT Strategy:
The cost of access devices (PCs, laptops, tablets etc.), connectivity circuits and “data centre” services
have fallen significantly in recent years, with some business applications migrating to ‘cloud based’
delivery accessible from anywhere via the Web. Suppliers, local government and national
government are all investing heavily in cloud computing models and the Business ICT Strategy will
seek to leverage these service models for the Council wherever possible to deliver Value for Money
over the period of 2013-2016 while ensuring our information security obligations continue to be
met.
Over the last two decades, the Internet has developed as a major channel for exchanging
information between citizens and government, both local and central. In recent years the further
computerisation of government processes has enabled wider opportunities for self-service and the
introduction of greater automation. The Business ICT Strategy will leverage the further automation
of Council business processes, greater business systems integration, and channel shift.
South Gloucestershire Council Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016
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Consumerisation of ICT, or “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) or “Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC), is
rapidly becoming the norm within the wider business community, and is based on a simple premise:
employees can bring their own devices to work and access all the business systems they need to
carry out their day job. The rationale being that this option increases staff satisfaction as they have
self-selected a device that they find easy and enjoyable to use, and allows the ICT function to focus
on other strategic initiatives, rather than managing and troubleshooting a large estate of physical
devices. There is already a demand within the Council from staff to allow them to use their own
devices for work purposes. The Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016 will therefore support this
aspiration and establish the environment that enables this to happen in a secure manner.
As virtualisation technologies mature there are increasing opportunities to do more with limited
resources. In turn, employee expectations are rising. They are looking for greater mobility, device
flexibility and solutions from corporate ICT that can help them in their daily jobs. The Business ICT
Strategy will leverage virtualisation technologies to deliver solutions that support growth, are costeffective, and make ICT solutions more efficient, flexible and productive.
Application consolidation may hold even more savings potential than server virtualisation for the
council. Application consolidation can merge redundant systems into a common platform that
reduces complexity, saves money on software licensing and enhances information sharing.
Consideration for application consolidation has been incorporated throughout the development of
the council’s Business ICT Strategy and will form a core aspect of the ongoing ICT governance.
In delivering the Business ICT Strategy the Council will:
Continue to review the functionality and opportunities of emerging cloud offerings;
Assess ‘fitness for purpose’ of proposed solutions when assessing business
requirements;
Ensure that solutions are as ‘future proof’ as possible;
Ensure that agreed SLAs and recovery times are developed, agreed and communicated;
Demonstrate the value for money that solutions offer the Council.
Through the Business ICT Strategy the Council will seek further economies of scale through supplier
rationalisation and consolidation, whilst delivering more business focused IT services which meet the
needs of our services and customers. The Business ICT Strategy will support the rationalisation of the
Council office accommodation, providing increased flexibility for home working including use of
personal devices for Council business and enhance our business continuity provisions where
required.
South Gloucestershire Council Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016
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2.4 Environmental Sustainability
It is essential that the Council’s ICT services are delivered in a way that minimises environmental
impact and contributes to the Council’s environmental delivery targets and aspirations. Importance
is particularly placed on:
Careful procurement which minimises the ICT estate, thus reducing energy use in
manufacture, operational use, and end of life disposal;
Reducing energy use of the ICT desktop estate, supporting the Carbon Management
Plan, and reducing electricity costs to the organisation;
Reducing energy use and heat generated by ICT servers, supporting the Carbon
Management Plan and reducing electricity costs to the organisation;
Encouraging the re-use of ICT assets that can benefit the wider community and
contribute to the digital inclusion initiative, and where this is not possible, to carefully
commission end of life waste disposal for all ICT equipment including consumables so
that there is no detrimental environmental impact and minimising waste to landfill.
Reductions in the carbon footprint will be sought from 2012/2013 including ICT estate
consolidation/rationalisation, increased use of thin client devices and a rationalisation of ICT data
centres.
2.5 UK Government ICT Standards and Guidance
The UK Government has developed an ICT Strategy underpinned by a range of standards, guidance
and services. In particular, the Public Services Network (PSN) is at the foundation of the Government
ICT Strategy. PSN provides an assured network over which Government can safely share services,
including many GCloud services; collaborate in new ways, and work more effectively and efficiently
than ever before.
In developing the Business ICT Strategy we have taken cognisance of the extensive work already
done by the Cabinet Office around ICT strategy and services and will seek to leverage these services
to deliver efficiencies in the delivery of Council services over the period of 2013-2016.
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2.6 Aligning with the Council’s core values
The Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016 has been developed to provide the capabilities required to
support the Council’s vision and core values as set out in the Council Strategy 2013-2016. During the
development of the Business ICT Strategy a number of Strategic Themes for ICT were developed by
the Business and ICT to support these core Council values and the diagram below illustrates their
mutual alignment.
Delivering Value
for Money `
Protecting the
environment
Working in an
integrated way
Flexible
Infrastructure
Engaging with
our partners
Customer
focused
Excellence for our
customers and
communities
Collaborative
working
Adaptable and
appropriate skilled
workforce
Figure 1 - Alignment of ICT Strategic Themes and Core Council Values
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2.7 ICT strategic themes
Theme
Information
management
Efficiency and
effectiveness
Collaboration
Customer
service
External
partnerships
Protecting the
environment
Description
The Business ICT Strategy recognises the need to drive up customer satisfaction
through consistent, common standards and effective front-line activities, whilst
also reducing corporate overheads on services. Through this theme, focus will be
given to customer records in departmental systems which underpin almost all
Council service delivery. Improved governance and tools will be developed, and
further use made of document and records management to provide an evidence
base for Council decision-making.
The ICT Transformation programme which commenced in 2011 highlighted a
proliferation of technologies, systems and applications across the various
directorates that appear to carry out similar and/or overlapping functions.
Through this theme, focus will be given to consolidating the various systems in use
and rationalise the technologies deployed across the Council.
The theme of collaboration is one that resonates with the wider Council Strategy
2013-2016 and is a key element to the Council’s vision and core values. The
technologies to support collaboration across the Council will be addressed as part
of the Workplace Environment opportunity (Table 4 – High priority strategic
Infrastructure recommendations) which also supports the environmental theme
by looking at the greater use of conferencing technology for meetings to reduce
staff travel.
The theme of customer service is one that is particularly emphasised in the wider
Council Strategy 2013-2016 and is also a key element to the Council’s vision and
core values. All the opportunities set out in the strategy must consider whether
they enhance customer service as part of assessing the potential benefits.
However, the Appointments Booking opportunity (Table 5 – High priority
strategic organisation-wide recommendations) was identified as offering
particular benefits with regard to customer service.
The theme of improving our interaction with external partners is another key
element of the wider Council Strategy 2013-2016. The technologies to support
interactions with external partners will be considered in all ICT initiatives and in
particular development of standard extranet technologies, collaboration spaces
and processes.
The theme of protecting the environment is one of particular importance to the
Council and will be considered when formulating the delivery of ICT projects. The
Workplace Environment and Single Integrated Network opportunities (Table 4 –
High priority strategic Infrastructure recommendations) both have the potential to
deliver a cost effective and energy efficient ICT estate that delivers reduced
environmental impact and enables new and sustainable ways of working for the
Council.
Table 1 - ICT Strategic Themes
South Gloucestershire Council Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016
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2.8 Delivering the Council’s priorities
The Business ICT Strategy will encourage the convergence, wherever possible, of business
applications onto more corporately aligned collaboration platforms moving away from traditional
departmental ‘silo’ applications that will not deliver the collaboration or value for money necessary
to tackle the service provision challenges facing the Council and its customers.
The Council will retain on a case by case basis “best of breed” systems that deliver unique
requirements of individual Council services. This strategic approach will support increased joint
working that leverages, wherever possible, common systems and services on a shared services basis
– both within and external to the organisation.
The Business ICT Strategy will require more sharing of systems and functionality across Council
departments to deliver the common business processes wherever required and an approach that
seeks to adapt individual department’s business processes on a best practice basis to enable use of
these common systems rather than adapting systems to meet individual business processes.
Critical to the Council in the period 2013-2016 will be the unlocking of the aggregated value of
information captured and managed in departmental systems through the implementation of a
standardised approach to data interfacing and interoperability between departmental systems,
whilst ensuring we continue to comply with all relevant information governance requirements.
The Business ICT Strategy will seek to leverage more flexible and customer-driven solutions where
possible incorporating Web and social networking tools to track and improve customer satisfaction
levels.
Underpinning the Business ICT Strategy will be a set of agreed Service Level Agreements and
business recovery timescales for key systems, to ensure that the organisation can depend on robust,
available and reliable ICT services.
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2.9 Optimising ICT service delivery
The delivery of the Business ICT Strategy will reflect the priorities of the Council and the way our
services are delivered. “Commodity” or utility services, such as document management systems,
network services and data centre services, will be procured through outcome-based contracts using
an aggregated approach where appropriate (i.e. we will be vendor neutral and seek the most
economically advantageous contracts for delivering these technologies, simplifying and
standardising commodity or utility applications and services across the Council where possible).
Through the Business ICT Strategy we will improve our contract and procurement arrangements for
those maintenance and support services essential to underpinning the delivery of ICT services. This
will require the development of enhanced supplier management, commercial and contract
management skill sets to deliver value for money and customer satisfaction.
The Council will seek to develop relationships with key technology partners to support requirements
for rapid deployment of significant business change initiatives or to provide additional 3rd line
support capacity in key infrastructure technology areas.
The Council will also seek to further rationalise the ICT supplier base and drive greater supplier
aggregation to drive out savings whilst ensuring business needs are still appropriately met.
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3
The Council has adopted an Enterprise Architecture as the basis for achieving Business/ICT alignment
within the Business ICT Strategy. It is based upon the industry best practice framework TOGAF (The
Open Group Architecture Framework).
“Enterprise architecture is the organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure reflecting
the integration and standardization requirements of the company's operating model. The operating
model is the desired state of business process integration and business process standardization for
delivering services to customers. Enterprise Architecture models are arranged in a logical manner
that provide an ever-increasing level of detail about the enterprise: its objectives and goals; its
processes and organization; its systems and data; the technology used and any other relevant
spheres of interest.”
During 2012 an Enterprise Architecture was developed to provide a technical, contractual and
commercial framework for future Council ICT service provision decisions. The absence of a
framework in the past has caused ICT and the wider Council to react to technology requests with adhoc or interim solutions.
The Enterprise Architecture sets out a common strategic approach which offers significant cost and
service benefits. This approach will help to ensure that the Council provisions only what is needed,
that provisioned services will operate effectively together with increasing interoperability, and that
the Council can continue to further rationalise and optimise the ICT estate and improve the
performance and effectiveness of ICT operations across the organisation. These principles have been
developed using both industry and government standards and guidance and adapted to our Council
needs.
Going forward business and technology requirements will be assessed against a set of agreed
Architecture Principles and only those requirements and solutions that meet these principles will
progress to detailed business case development and approval.
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3.1 Architectural Principles
The following set of Architectural Principles, which will govern the design and provisioning of the
Council’s ICT services, are summarised in the following table. There is no set priority contained
within these principles with the relative priority of each considered on a case by case basis.
Ref Architecture Principle
Explanation
1
Generic capabilities in
systems where possible,
versus bespoke systems
2
Control technical diversity
and consolidate
3
Prioritise supportability
4
Design common use
solutions that promote
reuse of business
functionality
5
Maximise existing and
future ICT investment
6
Embed appropriate
Disaster Recovery and
Business Continuity
provision
7
Ensure availability of ICT
Services
The Council will pursue a strategy of configuring fit-for-purpose
packaged software rather than bespoke software development,
and wherever possible encourage the use of “vanilla” products
with minimal local customisation.
The Council will seek to minimise and standardise the portfolio
of technology implemented across the business. We will seek to
consolidate technology so that multiple solutions share core
infrastructure appropriately. We will capitalise on
organisational-wide licensing benefits and remove multiple
versions of the same software whenever possible. We will also
seek to ensure that all projects embed decommissioning
activities as part of project deliverables and cost.
The Council will procure and implement solutions that inherently
consider the whole life support skills and resources required so
that service delivery can be maintained and ensure projects
embed IT and business staff training as part of project
deliverables and cost. We will ensure that projects consider the
on-going support requirements as part of their decision making
processes, and ensure the resources to deliver these are
identified.
The Council will seek to provide generic ICT capabilities available
to the whole organisation that can be repurposed to deliver
specific solutions for individual service areas. Where
appropriate we will also enable the reuse of standard business
process and functionality.
ICT provisioning decisions will control cost of ownership and
support business needs whilst balancing cost, functionality, risk
and benefits. This includes reuse of existing applications,
infrastructure and skills/capabilities within the business and with
our partners. This principle will not impose unacceptable
limitations on transformation, and the enterprise architecture
will govern the introduction of technology according to actual
business need.
Solutions and infrastructure will be selected, configured and
deployed in such a way that the business is protected from
individual component failures according to prioritised risk and
impact assessments. We will ensure appropriate contingencies
and reduce risk for when serious failures occur.
Solutions and infrastructure will be designed to meet the
required levels of availability of the business. This may include
special provision at key times to support periodic fluctuations in
demand for the service area.
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8
Ensure value for money
9
Enable agility in ICT
Services
10
Ensure scalability
11
12
Maximise interoperability
across ICT systems
Focus on robust
information management
and security
13
Compliance with the law
14
Ensure data is accessible
and manage master data
15
Maintain effective ICT
supplier relationships
Enable effective
partnership working
16
17
Provide easy to use
systems
18
Ensure environmental
sustainability
Through effective contract management and appropriate
selection of solutions and suppliers, ICT and the business will
prioritise value for money by considering total cost of ownership.
ICT systems and services will be designed to ensure agility and
flexibility to support potential and known future requirements
based on business planning and forecasting. This includes
consideration of factors such as simplicity and cost of change
without complex dependencies on additional ICT resource or
equipment.
ICT systems and services will be designed to ensure scalability to
support potential and future use based on business planning and
forecasting. This includes consideration of factors such as user
concurrency and data storage capacity.
The design of ICT systems and services will consider the ease of
data exchange, and system-to-system communication.
Our information will be protected from unauthorised use and
disclosure according to corporate policies and standards. Access
and changes to data will be recorded where appropriate. ICT
systems, services and processes will be designed in a way to
comply with relevant security policies and industry standards.
ICT systems, services and processes will be designed to comply
with relevant legislation and regulation.
ICT systems and services will have appropriate and controlled
access to data. Key data types will be defined consistently
throughout the organisation wherever possible and appropriate.
Data definitions will be understandable to all users. Solutions
should ideally expose data in open formats to encourage and
simplify the analysis, exchange and use of data.
We will aim to foster “partnership” relationships with ICT
suppliers whilst ensuring quality of service and value for money.
We will implement solutions and processes that enable other
agencies including neighbouring authorities and other public
sector organisations to work efficiently with the Council.
ICT systems will be designed and implemented with the needs of
the user in mind so ICT systems are intuitive, meet usability and
accessibility best practice.
ICT systems will minimise their environmental impact and
consider low energy demands and the further reduction of our
carbon footprint. Through procurement work to ensure our
suppliers are adequately considering their own environmental
responsibilities.
Table 2 - Architectural Principles
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3.2 Developing the Business ICT Strategy
The Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016 is supported by a comprehensive component based
assessment of 164 distinct Council business systems and the underlying enabling ICT infrastructure.
The component assessment provides the Council with insight into current capabilities and required
future capabilities and defines in some detail the business requirements and needs of the
organisation over the period 2013-2016. The assessment followed a structured repeatable approach
that allows for additional assessments in the future of capabilities as business requirements develop.
In addition to the component analysis a Council wide “Voice of the Customer” survey of staff was
conducted to seek staff views on current ICT service provision.
The component assessment was conducted by the business and ICT between August and October
2012. Each component was assessed against the Architectural Principles identified in Section 3.1
above, taking into consideration on-going projects, risks, issues and business challenges, and given
an overall RAG (Red, Amber or Green) rating.
The component assessment ratings were analysed against the Enterprise Architecture and a “Heat
Map” of current capabilities was compiled. The analysis was captured and analysed at a number of
levels of detail with level 1 presenting the highest level of aggregation of current capabilities.
The capability heat map supports the development of a portfolio of opportunities across the
following dimensions:
1. Corporate or departmental i.e. opportunities that will deliver business benefit to individual
departments or functions;
2. Organisation-wide i.e. opportunities that will deliver benefits across the whole Council; and
3. Infrastructure i.e. enabling projects that will underpin the delivery of either service specific
or Council wide capabilities.
Opportunities within the portfolio have been categorised as either Strategic or Tactical/Operational:
Strategic opportunities are defined as capabilities requiring significant attention and may
require the development or delivery of a new system or significant effort to address issues
with an existing set of capabilities. As a result Strategic opportunities may not have preexisting funding in some cases, or the business case may be more complex or need to
consider a longer time period when looking at whole life costs.
Tactical/Operational opportunities are defined as capabilities requiring a minor upgrade to
an existing system or requiring business as usual support activities, and where funding for
such initiatives is from existing business budgets.
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The following table quantifies projects by category. Please Note: The numbers in ( ) show which of
the total in each group are already underway.
Strategic
Project / Business priority
Tactical / Operational
High
Medium
Low
High
Medium
Low
5
1
-
6 (3)
3
2
Organisation-wide
9 (3)
7
9 (1)
-
-
-
Corporate and departmental
6 (1)
5
2
20 (9)
4
1
Infrastructure
Table 3 - Categorised Projects
In addition details of IT projects already underway with allocated funding were captured; this was to
ensure that when planning the Business ICT Strategy delivery programme that a complete picture of
already committed resource was understood.
All opportunities, Strategic, Tactical and Operational have been assigned an initial priority of High,
Medium or Low by the Business and ICT. The prioritisation was used to guide the development of a
set of delivery recommendations focused initially on the high priority Strategic opportunities only.
The full portfolio of strategic, tactical and operational potential projects is not final and can be
adjusted through the proposed Business ICT Strategy governance process as business needs and
priorities evolve.
The prioritisation of projects will serve to guide the creation of outline business cases (OBC) and full
business cases to support individual initiatives. The Council will develop OBCs for each candidate
opportunity and assess both the financial and non-financial benefits. The OBCs must be approved
through the Business ICT Strategy governance process before any opportunity can be taken forward
and form part of an approved portfolio of projects.
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3.3 Recommended strategic project portfolio
The tables in this section list all the strategic opportunities defined by the business. The scope of
the strategic recommendations is limited to the opportunities that were deemed to have a high
business priority.
High level cost estimates have been provided as a precursor to the development of outline business
cases, and where necessary full business cases. This information is supported by an indicative
programme plan. A full explanation of the project scope and benefits is also provided. Potential
projects marked * are already planned as part of the Council’s Transformation and Efficiency
programme.
3.3.1 Infrastructure opportunities
Six strategic projects in total were identified in the Infrastructure category. These are the high
priority recommendations.
Project
Primary theme
High business priority
Workspace
Includes: Desktop, laptop, mobile devices. Shift
to thin-client. Enable ‘bring your own device’.
Operating system and Office suite and Email
upgrade. Unstructured data access and
management.
Identity and access management
Includes: Common repository for security and
identity information. Enabling technology for
greater self-service and portals, mobile data
services, single authoritative phonebook service,
integration to HR data.
Strategic Network Provision
Includes: Consolidating all current networks.
Removing single points of failure. Enabling
prioritisation of types of traffic to ensure quality
of service. Improving options for disaster
recovery services. Unified communications.
Strategic supplier sourcing
Includes: Optimise the current portfolio of over
1000 external suppliers.
Data loss prevention
Includes: Review and improvement of data
backup, data security and disaster recovery
technology.
Status
Recommendation
Efficiency and
effectiveness
Potential
Deliver in 20132014
Information
management
Potential
Proceed to
business case for
delivery project
Efficiency and
effectiveness
Potential
Deliver in 20132014
Efficiency and
effectiveness
Potential
Information
management
Potential
Proceed to
business case for
delivery project
Proceed to
business case for
delivery project
Table 4 – High priority strategic Infrastructure recommendations
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3.3.2 Organisation-wide opportunities
Twenty five strategic projects in total were identified in the Organisation-wide category. These are
the high priority recommendations.
Project
High business priority
Intranet and enterprise search
Includes: Modern intranet and
collaborative working platform. Unified
search of pages, unstructured data and
people information
Enterprise GIS
Includes: Rationalisation of GIS
technology. Enable enhanced mapping
and spatial services to staff and the
public.
Document and records management *
Includes: Review existing process and
provision for document management
and scanning across the organisation.
Consider technology consolidation.
Implement robust records
management.
Performance management *
Includes: Review processes and need
for specific technology.
Primary theme
Status
Recommendation
Collaboration
Potential
Proceed to
business case for
delivery project
Efficiency and
effectiveness
Potential
Deliver in 20132014
Information
management
Potential
Proceed to
analysis based on
T+E programme,
business case as
initial output
Efficiency and
effectiveness
Potential
Data interoperability and integration
Includes: Developing standards,
processes and technologies, enabling
effective integration.
Appointment booking *
Includes: Implement technology for
enabling self-service and mediated
appointment booking services.
Information
management
Potential
Proceed to
analysis based on
T+E programme,
business case as
initial output
Proceed to
business case for
delivery project
Customer service
Potential
Proceed to
delivery based on
T+E and Customer
First programme
Table 5 – High priority strategic organisation-wide recommendations
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3.3.3 Corporate and departmental opportunities
Thirteen strategic projects in total were identified in the Organisation-wide category. These are the
high priority recommendations.
Project
High business priority
Child social care and education (CYP)
Includes: technology procurement in the
context of Capita ONE contract expiry and
CCH/CYP department merger.
Children’s preventative services (CYP)
Includes: Review of technology supporting
processes in Youth Offending service and
other areas.
Adult social care financial
assessment/invoicing (CCH) *
Includes: Review of technology supporting
these business processes.
ECS core systems (ECS)
Includes: General review of functional overlap
between Uniform, Flare, Mayrise, Kirona Job
Manager and Bartec solutions. Online
provision for Building Control. Data structures
and interoperability. Ability to integrate with
Northgate FrontOffice technology in support
of the Customer First programme. Support for
mobile staff.
Housing accommodation procurement (CCH)
Includes: Rent accounting process and
technology requirements. Data duplication
between HomeChoice and Flare. Current
effort associated with housing benefit
payments (Flare and Civica).
Primary theme
Status
Recommendation
Efficiency and
effectiveness
Potential
Proceed to
business case for
analysis project
Efficiency and
effectiveness
Potential
Proceed to
business case for
analysis project
Efficiency and
effectiveness
Potential
Proceed to
business case for
analysis project
Efficiency and
effectiveness
Potential
Proceed to
business case for
analysis project
Efficiency and
effectiveness
Potential
Proceed to
business case for
analysis project
Table 6 – High priority strategic corporate and departmental recommendations
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4
4.1 Strategic alignment
The Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016, the strategic project recommendations, and the supporting
analysis provides stakeholders across the council with greater transparency over the provision and
delivery of ICT services, enabling the closer collaboration required to embed the Business ICT
Strategy within the Council’s overall planning processes.
A Business ICT Strategy team will be drawn from across the business and aligned with departmental
priorities utilising business partners and enhanced ICT governance arrangements. Updates to the
Business ICT Strategy 2013-2016 will be approved annually at the Business ICT Strategy board, with a
full strategy being submitted to committee on a rolling three year basis.
4.2 ICT Target Operating Model (TOM)
Delivering the vision of a high quality ICT service demands a new ICT delivery model (structure,
processes, tools, governance and contractual arrangements). The current ICT operating model will
be further enhanced to support the delivery of the Business ICT Strategy. Particular focus will be
given to:
Delivering service excellence across ICT services with high levels of customer satisfaction;
Closely aligning IT decision-making, business objectives and customer needs;
Delivering transparent and demonstrable value for money; and
Underpinning ICT services with a clear set of ICT policies and processes.
We will deliver an annual ICT Operations plan that will underpin the delivery of the Business ICT
Strategy and will be reviewed annually in line with the strategy. This process will include
measurement and reporting of what has been achieved against the plan.
4.3 ICT skills and staff development
During 2012, a major reorganisation of ICT was undertaken to provide the Council with clearer ICT
accountability and access to the analytical, strategy and service delivery skills required to develop
and deliver the Business ICT Strategy. The new ICT organisation includes three senior IT business
partner roles to act as the liaison between ICT and Council departments and they will form part of
the Business ICT Strategy team going forward.
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An industry-recognised skills framework such as SFIA (Skills for the Information Age) will be
introduced to develop staff, with stronger performance management practices underpinned by a
performance framework. We will continue to invest in developing the service oriented culture that
recognises the customer at the core of the strategy and invest in our people to deliver the culture
change required.
We will explore opportunities to enhance further the ICT delivery model through a review of ICT
resources across the Council in partnership with service departments. We will seek to engender a
customer centric culture in the delivery of South Gloucestershire Council ICT and encourage teams
to pursue industry awards and professional development.
More widely the Council will broaden its ICT skills base across all of its employees. Significant
investment is made in technology and we must ensure our staffs have the capability to make the
best use of it. We will work with our Human Resources to establish core competencies around ICT
and develop a corporate training programme to ensure staffs are skilled up to use business and
corporate technology platforms. This will improve productivity, drive up the return on investment in
business systems and encourage ICT enabled change to take place, improving the customer
experience and service delivery.
4.4 Service management framework
During 2012 a new ICT service management framework was implemented to ensure performance
and strategic alignment for all future ICT projects, systems and services. Based on the industrystandard “ITIL v3” service lifecycle it incorporates quality gates to ensure alignment with core
principals of ownership, contract/procurement, lifecycle costing and recharges, resilience and
configuration management
We will introduce key performance indicators for the ICT service, based on ITIL best practice, and
embed these in the delivery of operational and project services as part of our performance
management framework. Such a framework will assure and enable high quality delivery standards
for software upgrades, a comprehensive hardware maintenance programme and effective service
desk operations.
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4.5 Information and security management
With the need for increasingly distributed and remote ICT services, strong Information and security
management frameworks, enshrined in service contract and operational processes will be essential
to ensure service/customer insight and compliance is maintained.
As part of the development of the ICT service, fragmented ICT security, information management
and acceptable use policies will be consolidated and updated, and sustainable governance
established through ICT reorganisation. This will ensure compliance with government guidance on
ICT security. Specifically it is of critical priority that our obligations are met around Government
Connect CoCo compliance and NHSIG compliance.
4.6 Vendor management
There are mixed sourcing arrangements for services within the Council including a number of major
relationships:
Customer Management System with Northgate;
Finance systems with Civica;
Revenues and benefits systems with Northgate;
Social care systems with Northgate;
Environmental systems with Civica;
Planning and Building Control with Civica
Education and children’s social care systems with Capita
During 2012, a review of performance against contracted obligations and the business needs of the
Council commenced for key 3rd party suppliers, seeking to address any areas of non-compliance.
Going forward, ICT will focus on achieving contracted performance levels, not “filling the gaps” with
ad-hoc and reactive solutions, and developing services as part of a clear migration path aligned to
this strategy. In particular the current ICT supplier base will be consolidated extensively, reducing
the large number of discrete suppliers. All contracts will be robustly managed to ensure high quality
delivery and value for money for the organisation. The renewals process will always test the market
to assure we achieve best value.
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4.7 Business ICT Strategy governance
A tiered structure will govern the commissioning and delivery of ICT Change. The processes will be
centred around a clearly defined portfolio management approach.
Suitable Business
Case
Technology Advisory Board
(TAB) - Monthly
(Monthly)
IT Strategy Board
Quarterly
IT Change Advisory Board
(CAB) - Weekly
(Weekly)
Business ICT Strategy Board – The Business ICT Strategy Board (Strategy Board) will meet quarterly
to review formally submitted Outline Business Cases against the Business ICT Strategy, current year
investment plan, the current approved portfolio of projects and current business priorities. The
Strategy Board will also monitor and review progress on the Business ICT Strategy Implementation
programme for the current year.
Technology Advisory Board (TAB) – The Technology Advisory Board will meet monthly or on
demand as needs require reviewing technology assistance requests from the business, and providing
advice and guidance to the business for projects at the ‘concept’ or feasibility stage. The TIB may
recommend projects are further developed to Outline Business Case stage and submitted to the
Business ICT Strategy Board for assessment. The TAB may also recommend projects are passed
directly to ICT for development and implementation governed by the ICT Change Board. The
Technology Innovation Board will also, as part of its core remit, provide a key focus on application
rationalisation. It will also be responsible for evaluating new technologies that may have potential
corporate applications for the council in the future, to help inform the on-going development of the
strategy.
ICT Change Advisory Board (CAB) – The ICT Change Advisory Board will meet weekly to plan and
manage the delivery of ICT change requests that originate from the business or from ICT. Change
requests may be received from the TIB or the Strategy Board to the ICT CAB. The ICT CAB will report
back formally to both the Business ICT Strategy Board and the TAB on a regular basis to inform on
progress and provide insight on issues and further opportunities.
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4.8 Transparent cost of technology services
During 2012 ICT services costs were base-lined and indicative costs for the Business ICT Strategy
projects are being sought, to inform the outline business cases for the new Business ICT Strategy,
and the attached medium term financial plan. As the strategy moves forward, ICT will look to revise
the existing recharging model to provide stakeholders with greater visibility and control over their
technology costs, and an overall reduction in Total Cost of Ownership.
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5
-
A number of key initial priorities have been identified for 2013-2014 that will deliver a set of
enabling IT capabilities to underpin the ICT Strategy over the coming years. These include:
Enhancing the ICT relationship with the wider business through greater engagement in
business planning and enhanced ICT Governance.
Deliver the target IT Savings Plan in 2013-2104 through a detailed ICT Procurement Plan:
1. Procurement of a Strategic Network Provider
2. Enhance and replace key ICT technologies and services
3. ICT Contract Optimisation
Continue to rationalise the ICT Supplier base, and engage more deeply with the business in
the management of indirect ICT Suppliers.
Deliver high quality IT services based on Key Performance Indicators.
Enhance relationship with partner organisations including Health, Justice and Police and
neighbouring councils.
Deliver IT enabling technology to support the rollout of the ICT Strategy
1. Deliver a significantly enhanced E-mail Communications platform with a significant
increase in e-mail capacity, performance and usability
2. Deliver an enhanced thin client computing experience through a Citrix upgrade for
onsite and remote working including delivering a Windows 7 and Office 2013 user
experience
3. Enhance the underlying Server Virtualisation platform to increase stability and
performance of Council systems
4. Continue to drive to a common technical platform model across server, storage and
network domains to maximise existing investments and deliver further consolidation
and virtualisation opportunities
5. Commence the rollout of new desktop devices, moving to a mainly thin client delivery
model and deploying Windows 8 touch devices and Windows 7 for legacy laptops and
desktops with Office 2013 for increased staff usability and productivity
6. Deploy a Mobile Device Management Platform to deliver a secure mobile and BYOD
platform for all staff
7. Deliver enhancements to the IT Security Policy
8. Enhance Intranet technologies to improve collaboration and efficient information
sharing
9. Rollout Enterprise GIS platform
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Deliver IT support to core organisation change projects including Streetcare, Customer First,
Directorate specific business change projects, external collaboration and Public Website
enhancements
Continue the work delivered in the IT Transformation programme to drive Continuous
Improvement across IT Services:
1. Service Desk Process Enhancements
2. Enhancements to IT Change and Problem Management
3. Deployment of disruptive technologies to deliver new and innovative citizen focused
services
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6
The Business ICT Strategy and the supporting medium term financial plan outline how we will
transform our ICT service delivery model through:
Aligning business needs and requirements with ICT plans and roadmaps
Delivery of an enhanced end-user computing experience at a much reduced Total Cost of
Ownership which was highlighted across the business as the single most important project;
Delivery of a new operating model for core ICT services, involving converged network
provision
Migration to a more common use services and systems across the Council functions leading
to a significantly reduced software application footprint ;
Delivery of an ICT Governance model for all ICT Change requirements.
A consolidated ICT capital investment plan, with supporting development programme has been
developed to deliver these projects over 2013-2016, ensuring that business as usual is maintained or
improved as service transformation takes place.
The indicative costs outlined in medium term financial plan will need to be validated through a
business case process however the following conclusions can be drawn from the analysis:
i.
A number of opportunities have the potential to deliver significant tangible financial savings
over the four year period
ii.
A number of the opportunities recognise the need to update or replace legacy or end of life
systems and platforms
iii.
Whilst savings and consolidation are key benefits, many of the opportunities also deliver
significant improvements for internal or external users.
iv.
There is a need for some upfront additional investment required in the majority of
opportunities to enable the financial savings to be realised over the four year period
v.
A number of opportunities may deliver intangible savings i.e. savings in terms of staff time,
productivity and effectiveness that can be used to enhance customer service
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