CENSUS JOINT COMMITTEE (CENTRAL SUSSEX PARTNERSHIP) 21 st June 2013

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1 CENSUS JOINT COMMITTEE (CENTRAL SUSSEX PARTNERSHIP) 21 st June 2013 Present: Councillor Helena Croft, Horsham District Council Tom Crowley, Chief Executive, Horsham District Council Tim Delany, Head of CenSus Revenues and Benefits, Mid Sussex District Council Katharine Eberhart, Director of Corporate Resources, Horsham District Council Councillor Jim Funnell, Adur District Council Ian Henderson, Interim Head of CenSus ICT, Horsham District Council Sandra Herbert, Monitoring Officer and Principal Solicitor, Horsham District Council Councillor Gordon Lindsay, Horsham District Council Councillor Gary Marsh, Mid Sussex District Council Councillor Julie Searle, Adur District Council Carol Stephenson, CenSus Programme Manager Peter Stuart, Head of Finance, ICT and HR, Mid Sussex District Council Raymond Tinney, Scrutiny and Committee Support Officer, Horsham District Council Councillor Paul Yallop, Worthing Borough Council CJC/01 ELECTION OF A CHAIRMAN FOR 2013/14 RESOLVED that Councillor Gordon Lindsay be elected as Chairman of the Committee. CJC/02 APPOINTMENT OF A VICE CHAIRMAN FOR 2013/14 RESOLVED that Councillor Helena Croft be appointed as Vice Chairman of the Committee. CJC/03 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE Apologies were received from the following: Councillor Jonathan Ash-Edwards, Mid Sussex District Council Kathryn Hall, Chief Executive, Mid Sussex District Council Councillor Daniel Humphreys, Worthing Borough Council Peter Latham, Chief Executive, Adur and Worthing Councils CJC/04 DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST There were no declarations of interest. 1

2 CJC/05 MINUTES OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE MEETING ON 9 th MAY 2013 The minutes of the meeting held on 9 th May 2013 were approved and signed by the Chairman as a correct record. CJC/06 OUTTURN 2012/13 The Head of Finance presented a report which outlined the final financial position for the CenSus shared services. The Revenues and Benefits Service had seen an overspend of 151,804, and the ICT Service had an underspend of 24,883 for 2012/13. RESOLVED to note the report and the outturn position for 2012/13. CJC/07 CENSUS ANNUAL RETURN FOR 2012/13 The Head of Finance presented a report which detailed the Annual Return for 2012/13 which would be audited by Littlejohn, the newly-appointed auditors. Members of the Committee requested that future Annual Returns be more legible rather than featuring handwritten figures which could be difficult to read. RESOLVED to approve the Annual Return for 2012/13 and authorise the Chairman to sign and to forward it to the auditors. CJC/08 ICT SERVICE END OF YEAR REPORT FOR 2012/13 AND PERFORMANCE UPDATE 2013/14 The Interim Head of ICT presented a report which provided the Committee with details of: the final status of the 2012/13 project programme; the CenSus ICT service performance at the 1 st quarter of 2013/14 and the budget position as at the end of May 2013; the current status of the WBC Fibre Switch Action Plan; the status of current live CenSus ICT projects; the current status of the Capita WAN and telephony services; and the status and impact of any significant incidents within the last reporting quarter. The CenSus ICT Service had met its operational SLA call closure performance targets in one of the two months within the 1 st quarter of 2013/14. During 2012/13 it had achieved that target for ten of the twelve months. 2

3 The telephony contract had been awarded to Siemens; a phased approach would be implemented for Adur District and Worthing Borough councils in line with their planned office and staff moves, and would be completed for Horsham District and Mid Sussex District councils in Q4 of Over the last quarter there had been no major service issues or outages. In relation to the WBC Fibre Switch Action Plan, a hardware vulnerability log of the current CenSus infrastructure had been produced and had been made available for the ICT Sub-Group s attention. In relation to the Technology Lifecycle Priority 2, brocade switches at Mid Sussex District Council had been replaced. The installation of replacement substitute switches and consolidation of support arrangements would be completed by early July, rather than the end of June 2013 as listed. The implementation of the Change Management process and upgrade of the Help Desk software was slightly behind schedule because of staff sickness. It had been scheduled for completion by the end of June With regard to the Back-up Software Priority 1, the Back-up and Recovery review had identified some operational issues which were being addressed. Work was progressing to establish a common approach across all three sites. A progress report on the IT DR and Policy Strategy would be presented to the Committee meeting in September Issues in relation to the single core switch at Mid Sussex District Council were outlined. The Interim Head of ICT updated the Committee regarding the schedule of mitigating actions which were planned. The Chief Executive of Horsham District Council suggested that it might be beneficial to request Deloittes, in the autumn of 2013, to undertake a thorough analysis of the ICT works that had been implemented. The implementation of the Capita WAN programme was expected to be completed in September The Committee requested to be informed if that timetable slipped. RESOLVED that the CenSus Joint Committee:- a. note the operational performance of the CenSus ICT service; b. note the current status of the CenSus ICT project progress; c. note the current status of the ICT non-census projects (site-specific projects); 3

4 d. note recent developments on the WSCC/Capita WAN and telephony services; e. note the current status of the WBC Fibre Switch Action Plan; f. note that there was no major ICT incident in the last quarter; and g. request that Deloittes be asked, in the autumn of 2013, to undertake a thorough analysis of the ICT works that had been implemented. CJC/09 SUMMARY REPORT ON THE VULNERABILITIES WITHIN CENSUS ICT The Interim Head of ICT presented a report which provided the Committee with details of the most significant vulnerabilities with CenSus ICT and participating organisations core infrastructures. Actions were being undertaken to address the vulnerabilities. As potential solutions were identified and business cases developed, approval for funding, where required, would be sought from the participating organisations. The Interim Head of ICT suggested that an ICT Risk Register be compiled which could be considered at a future Committee meeting. RESOLVED that the CenSus Joint Committee:- a. note the report; b. request that each of the participating organisations review the ICT vulnerabilities, assess the risks being incurred and decide on an agreed course of action for each of the vulnerabilities if they were not already being addressed; then report back on the actions taken or being planned to the next Committee meeting; and c. note that the Interim Head of ICT for CenSus will complete the development of the CenSus ICT Risk Register in preparation for consideration at a future Committee meeting. CJC/10 REVENUES AND BENEFITS END OF YEAR REPORT FOR 2012/13 AND PERFORMANCE UPDATE 2013/14 The Head of CenSus Revenues and Benefits presented a report which outlined the performance and activity for 2012/13 and the progress made by CenSus Revenues and Benefits since March He stated that the benefits team was well placed to deal with the workload for 2013/14 and that well-trained staff were in post. 4

5 There had been an increased volume of public telephone enquiries and concerns raised about many callers not being able to make contact. Additional staff resources had been allocated to the Revenues and benefits team to answer telephone calls and deal with the immediate pressure. During 2013/14 work would be undertaken with CenSus ICT to provide a satisfactory telephone system, and staffing options would be considered to provide a better answering service and to deal with peaks and troughs in demand. The implementation of the Benefit Cap would take place over a six week period commencing on 15 th July Discretionary Housing Payments showed low levels of awards by each of the participating authorities and a cautious approach to spending the available budget. In relation to the Council Tax Reduction Scheme, each of the authorities had slightly different schemes but implementation had been straightforward and the Capita IT module was performing well. There had, to date, been an overspend of the 2013/14 budget of 38,000. The budget for staffing was overspending because of ongoing use of agency staff which would continue until the end of June 2013 when it was anticipated that the volume of customer contacts would reduce. It was hoped that the overspend would be eliminated during the course of 2013/14 and savings in other budget areas were already being achieved. RESOLVED to note the performance, activities and budget position of the CenSus Revenues and Benefits service. CJC/11 WORK PROGRAMME 2013/14 The CenSus Programme Manager presented the proposed Work Programme for 2013/14. The ICT agenda items for the meeting on 27 th September 2013 would be combined within a single report. The Committee noted that Brandon Lewis MP, the Minister for Local Government, had recently opened Worthing Borough Council s newlyrefurbished customer service centre at Portland House. The building housed Adur and Worthing councils customer services, including planning, housing, environmental health, revenue and benefits. The Minister had been impressed by CenSus as an example of partnership between local authorities and as a means to achieve shared savings. The Committee recognised the need to build on such partnership, particularly in light of the reduction in Government funding of local government. RESOLVED to agree the work programme for 2013/14. 5

6 The meeting commenced at 10:00 a.m. and ended at 11:10 a.m. CHAIRMAN 6