www.socitmconsulting.co.uk
Appendix 1
South Ayrshire Council
ICT Service Overview
Final Report
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Telephone 01604 709456 E-mail [email protected]
Socitm: digital vision to digital value
Approvals
Role/Position
Approved by
Date
Socitm
Andrew Rogers
28-08-15
Socitm
Jim Roberts
28-08-15
Distribution list
From
Date
Contact details
Jim Roberts
28-08-15
Andrew Rogers
28-08-15


To
Date
Contact details
Valerie Andrews
28-08-15

07515 353187
07768 478611
[email protected]
Version History
File reference
ICT Service Health Check
ReviewV0.9.docx
ICT Service Health Check
ReviewV1.0.docx
Date
Author/amend
21-08-15
Jim
Roberts/Andrew
Rogers
Amended
Draft to
Sponsor
Jim Roberts
High level
plan
incorporated.
28-08-15
Description
© Copyright 2014 Socitm Limited.
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Status
Draft
Final
Socitm: digital vision to digital value
Table of Contents
1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
5
INTRODUCTION
THE CURRENT MODEL
FUTURE TRENDS
POTENTIAL MODEL FOR SAC
KEY FINDINGS OF THE SERVICE REVIEW
KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
DECISIONS REQUIRED
2
5
5
5
6
7
7
9
THE REVIEW
10
INTRODUCTION AND TERMS OF REFERENCE
BACKGROUND
THE CURRENT MODEL
FUTURE TRENDS
HOW THIS REVIEW WAS MANAGED
3
10
10
11
11
12
OBSERVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
13
STAKEHOLDER FEEDBACK
STRATEGIC PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT
GOVERNANCE AND COMMISSIONING PROCESS
3.3.1 INFORMATION MANAGEMENT BOARD
3.3.2 ICT OPERATIONAL BOARD
FUNCTIONAL MODEL AS BASIS OF NEW STRUCTURE
TECHNICAL STABILITY
CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVE
OPERATIONAL PROCESSES
FUTURE RESOURCE PROFILE OF ICT
RIGHT SOURCING MODEL
PROJECT AND PROGRAMME DELIVERY
13
14
14
15
16
17
18
18
19
19
20
21
4
HIGH LEVEL IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
23
5
COSTS OF INITIAL IMPLEMENTATION
24
6
PROPOSED FUNCTIONAL STRUCTURE
25
7
LIKELY OPERATIONAL AND CAPITAL BUDGET IMPLICATIONS
26
CURRENT EXPENDITURE AND COMPARISONS
FUTURE BUDGETARY IMPLICATIONS
8
26
26
CONCLUSION
28
CONCLUSION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
28
28
GLOSSARY
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1 Executive Summary
Introduction
During 2014 South Ayrshire Council (SAC) undertook a review of the resilience of the Council’s
existing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) service provision to enable informed
decisions to be made in respect of future ICT strategy, capital investment planning and technical
roadmaps. The review enabled the Council to evaluate its current position in relation to ICT
technology risk exposure and a £1.6m risk remediation capital investment programme was put in
place.
In March 2015, Socitm was appointed to carry out a review of the ICT function, with a view to
helping the council to establish how ICT should be positioned, what a suitable strategy might look
like and how delivery of this might be achieved.
The methodology used by the consultants involved interviews, and workshops with representatives
from each SAC Directorate to gain a customer view of ICT delivery and to allow the consultants to
understand the organisation’s business requirements and business change needs. The review also
involved interviews and workshops with senior stakeholders and individual ICT teams.
The Current Model
In common with most businesses, SAC work with an ICT model that was developed over 30 years
ago. Questions now arise as to the need to continue working in this way. There is now a move
generally away from that model towards a different working model that is more flexible, encourages
innovation, and is less expensive going forward.
The current SAC model includes a complete desktop with all Microsoft Office and line of business
applications deployed on every machine, utilising lots of local storage with the machines plugged
into the wired network running throughout the buildings.
Most, if not all, staff work at fixed locations with potentially every user provided with access to
every application, with the space for all applications provided on servers in SAC data centres at
Ayr – two data centres with all servers and all data replicated multiple times on disk and tape.
Although printing has been ‘centralised’ there is a heavy reliance on print capacity. This model,
whilst workable, is more than required to meet the needs of each staff member and potentially out
of step with recent developments in ICT.
This is not to argue that SAC is doing anything wrong. The point is to pose the question; whether
this ‘everything-for-everyone’ delivery is still needed and whether the cost burden of the full, heavyweight ICT delivery can be better utilised?
Future Trends
Trends in the ICT market place are driving the change from a desktop oriented ICT delivery to an
internet ‘cloud’ oriented model. Few would disagree that the change is taking place. The only
points of disagreement are how quickly the change is taking place and how this will impact the
public sector and private commercial companies alike. If anything, the pace of that change is
accelerating.
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SAC is at a point where it is undertaking a fundamental review of its ICT provision and there would
appear to be economic and operational advantages for moving away from the traditional model.
The general trends being:





Application hosting is moving from a model where each organisation has their own
centralised data centre to host all of their applications to a more open model where each
application is hosted either by the application provider or by a service company, a ‘cloud’
provider.
To allow access to data and applications in multiple data centres, the internet is becoming
the common denominator for access, effectively replacing the corporate Local Area
Network (LAN).
Security models are being deployed to cater for the multiplicity of hosting arrangements that
are emerging, allowing seamless access with a single logon to all relevant information.
If all applications and data are available across the internet, the role of the corporate
desktop and the corporate network will change.
Internet access is not precious about hardware and operating systems. If the corporate
LAN and desktop are not paramount, then there is no longer a requirement to standardise
equipment. A user is free to use the equipment of choice for their work, creating an ‘any
time, any place, any way’ model.
Potential Model for SAC
Following the general market trends outlined above, SAC should consider moving to a more
flexible ‘right sourced’ set of solutions that make use of these new ways of provision. This is
intended to represent a high level view of the way forward and needs to be considered alongside
the Information Management and Governance issues raised in this report.
In general then, SAC should as a matter of strategy:
Move away from in-house developed systems.

Should replace these with ‘line of business systems’ using a ‘best of breed’ approach from
the providers who operate in the particular market place.

These ‘line of business systems’ should generally be supported by the vendors and operate
in a ‘cloud’ environment.

General ‘office’ systems – including emails and telephony, should be placed in the cloud.

Maximise the integration mobile and fixed telephony.

Consider re-engineering business processes to enable systems to be implemented without
any customisation.

Extend the use of thin client and browser as an approach to delivering systems to the end
user.

Make the ICT help desk the single point of contact for all users in the first instance.
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Key findings of the service review
A summary of the key findings of the review is set out below. A more detailed commentary is
contained in the main body of the report.
Capabilities
Individual ICT teams have good technical knowledge within their particular realms of expertise;
there are however, individual points of failure in areas where expertise resides in one individual.
ICT service lacks business knowledge, business analysis skills or project management capability.
Strategy and Strategic Planning
The current ICT strategy is now out of date and in need of a refresh to reflect the Council’s
changing objectives and savings imperatives. The ICT strategy must also sit alongside an
Information Management Strategy that defines the information needed to support the Council.
Governance and Commissioning
The governance structure and the commissioning processes used to agree ICT work priorities are
no longer fit for purpose.
Customer Perspective
When interviewed and observed a number of ICT staff demonstrated a lack of Customer Service
culture. Feedback from the Directorate workshops reinforced this finding. There is a general lack of
confidence within the organisation of ICT’s ability to support change.
Technical Stability
The ICT team interviews highlighted that in general sufficient resilience was in place around core
operating systems and that core applications were now sufficiently documented to allow them to be
supported. However, two major areas of risk still remain; the resilience and capacity of the data
network, particularly in outlying areas, and in the support and maintenance of Oracle.
Resources
A benchmarking exercise to compare ICT resource levels and budgets within SAC with other
Councils showed SAC to have around 2/3 of the resource and revenue budget of others of similar
size and responsibility.
Operational Processes
ICT service management processes are designed around the needs of the ICT team rather than
designed to support the needs of the customer. Service Desk processes in particular are overly
complicated and lack a customer feedback loop.
Project Delivery
Within the Council there appears to be limited project management capability. The reviewers also
observed evidence that a number of ICT projects were delivered with little or no consultation with
the end user. Projects are not properly planned and as a consequence the ICT team receive adhoc unplanned requests for resource, which they cannot always accommodate.
Key Recommendations
The Council is on a journey and pragmatically it will have to take measured steps to transition the
ICT team to become an enabler to the whole Council. The following key recommendations are set
out as a practical response to the key findings above, which can be implemented in a phased
manner:
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ICT and Information Management Strategy





Review the key components of the ICT strategy as set out in the body of this report,
develop the budgetary implications alongside the high level timetable for delivering the
strategy.
Map out the key projects required over the next 3 years to deliver the Council’s
Transformation agenda.
Agree a Resource Plan (including the required skills) to deliver the priority ICT projects on
behalf of the transformation agenda.
Map out the high level information needs of the Directorates
Define the Information Management Strategy for the Council including responsibilities.
Governance




Establish a Governance structure, with a clearly defined framework that facilitates change.
Define a new projects framework where all work is commissioned based on business
needs, savings imperatives and business case.
Prioritise key projects and activities based on corporate business needs and the availability
of scarce resources.
Consider the revenue and capital budget required.
New Structure




Develop an Organisational structure for ICT that is designed to support the proposed new
operating model and functions.
Create a corporate Programme Management Office (PMO), to support governance and
assure the quality of projects being delivered.
Establish a strong Project Delivery culture.
Invest in trained Project Mangers that manage projects from end to end in-conjunction with
business users.
Ensure Technical Stability


Review the ICT Capital Programme plans to ensure that the capital investment deployed
around infrastructure stabilisation is being spent in the right areas.
Engage a specialist network consultant to investigate the networking performance issues
and to ensure the design is fit for the future.
Right Sourcing Options



Begin a procurement exercise to identify an Oracle Partner to deliver the council’s
enterprise resource planning needs and to support the hosting and support of Oracle on an
on-going basis.
Adopt a thin client approach to delivery.
Carry out soft market testing to establish which Core Infrastructure components can be
supported by managed cloud partners; migrate those services as appropriate.
Process Redesign


Establish Service Management processes within ICT.
Establish Management Information and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for ICT.
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
Implement new Service Desk Processes.
Transition to New Structure





Define new Job Descriptions and Person Specifications for ICT.
Consult and agree transition processes in line with established procedure.
Communicate to the rest of the Council the changes that are being made and why.
Establish and implement effective Transition Plan.
Ensure the new team structures are effectively embedded.
Decisions Required
South Ayrshire Council should therefore consider the key recommendations set out above and
specifically determine the following proposals:






To set up and operate new governance arrangements for all ICT and transformation related
work.
To carry out a detailed review of the data network to ensure adequate capacity.
To adopt and implement the proposed new model for ICT.
To implement a revised level and method of resourcing for ICT.
To carry out soft market testing for the support and provision of core ICT systems.
To let appropriate external contracts for the delivery and support of those IT systems where
it is advantageous.
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2 The Review
Introduction and Terms of Reference
During 2014 South Ayrshire Council (SAC) undertook a review of the resilience of the Council’s
existing ICT service provision to enable informed decisions to be made in respect of future ICT
strategy, capital investment planning and technical roadmaps. The review enabled the Council to
evaluate its current position in relation to ICT technology risk exposure and a £1.6m risk
remediation capital investment programme was put in place.
In March 2015 SOCITM was appointed to carry out an end to end review of the ICT function, the
two consultants carrying out the review, Andrew Rogers and Jim Roberts, have in-depth
experience of Local Government operational ICT delivery, business transformation, commercial
experience and previous experience implementing organisational restructures in ICT.
The terms of reference for this review were agreed at an initial meeting with the Executive Director
– Resources, Governance & Organisation and form part of the Project Initiation Document (PID).
They are: • To define an ICT Strategy that drives future ICT priorities and investment over the next 3 - 5
years but that also aligns to the Information needs of the Council and its intended delivery
partners;
• To assist the Council in defining an ICT roadmap that sets out for senior leadership the
methodology to deliver both the vision and strategy for ICT in terms of the phasing of the work,
the resources, skills and experience required;
• To assist the Council to put forward options for the delivery of a future target operating model for
ICT (including a recommended option) that defines the ICT structures, operational processes,
roles, expertise, skills, and architecture required;
• To define a business case for the required change, setting out potential areas where savings can
be made, the benefits of the proposed option and any areas where investment will be required;
• To identify areas of further innovation in future years around the service delivery options for ICT
(including, but not limited to, partnership working, commercial models that may generate income
for the Council and Areas where delivery of Digital Services may drive service delivery across the
Council and with its partners); and
• To define and gain agreement to a high level ICT architecture and application architecture design
that draws on best practice from elsewhere.
Background
The ICT function is located within the Finance and ICT service and comes under the remit of the
Head of Finance and ICT. Following a serious disruption to service during 2014, a programme of
work was put in place to review the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Service.
This programme comprised four phases; Phase 1, to establish areas of risk and weakness; Phase
2, to remediate the immediate areas of risk; Phase 3, to determine how to align the council’s
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organisational objectives to an ICT Strategy and Phase 4, to establish how the recommendations
of Phase 3 might be implemented.
Towards the end of 2014 a review of the resilience of the existing ICT service provision was
commissioned to establish areas of risk and weakness. As a result of this study, certain areas of
the current infrastructure were improved and a remediation timetable with planned capital
investment was put in place. This work was regarded as Phases 1 and 2 of the overall programme
to improve the ICT Service.
As reported to the Leadership Panel in December 2014, the third phase of the programme is to
create an ICT Strategy aligned to the Council’s overall objectives. The fourth phase of the
programme is to establish a ‘roadmap’ of how the proposed changes might be implemented. This
report therefore represents Phases 3 and 4 of the programme.
The Current Model
Many offices work with a paradigm that was developed over 30 years ago. Whilst that may have
been fit for purpose when developed, questions now arise as to the need to continue working with
this 30 year old model. Some pundits refer to the current evolution in thinking as a ‘post PC era’ or
‘post desktop era’ while others just believe that a fundamental rethinking of requirements will lead
to a different working model, hopefully more flexible and encouraging innovation, and less
expensive.
The current SAC model includes a complete desktop with all Microsoft Office and line of business
applications deployed on every machine, utilising lots of local storage with the machines plugged
into the wired network running throughout the buildings.
Most, if not all, staff work at fixed locations with potentially every user provided with access to
every application, with the space for all applications provided on servers in SAC data centres at
Ayr – two data centres with all servers and all data replicated multiple times on disk and tape.
Although printing has been ‘centralised’ there is a heavy reliance on print capacity. This model,
when fully implemented does work but is heavily over-engineered when compared to the actual
needs of each staff member and potentially out of step with recent developments in ICT.
This is not to argue that SAC is doing anything wrong. The point is to pose the question; whether
this ‘everything-for-everyone’ delivery is still needed and whether the cost burden of the full, heavyweight ICT delivery can be better utilised?
Future Trends
Trends in the ICT market place are driving the change from a desktop oriented ICT delivery to an
internet ‘cloud’ oriented model. Few would disagree that the change is taking place. The only
points of disagreement are how quickly the change is taking place and how this will impact the
public sector and private commercial companies alike. If anything, the pace of that change is
accelerating.
SAC is at a point where it is undertaking a fundamental review of its ICT provision and there would
appear to be economic and operational advantages for moving away from the traditional model.
The general trends being:

Application hosting is moving from a model where each organisation has their own
centralised data centre to host all of their applications to a more open model where each
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


application is hosted either by the application provider or by a service company, a ‘cloud’
provider.
To allow access to data and applications in multiple data centres, the internet is becoming
the common denominator for access, effectively replacing the corporate Local Area
Network (LAN).
Security models are being deployed to cater for the multiplicity of hosting arrangements that
are emerging, allowing seamless access with a single logon to all relevant information.
If all applications and data are available across the internet, the role of the corporate
desktop and the corporate network will change.
Internet access is not precious about hardware and operating systems. If the corporate LAN and
desktop are not paramount, then there is no longer a requirement to standardise equipment. A
user is free to use the equipment of choice for their work, creating an ‘any time, any place, any
way’ model.
How This Review Was Managed
At an initial meeting with the Executive Director Resources, Governance & Organisation, the Head
of Finance & ICT and the IT Strategy Officer, the Project Initiation Document, (PID) was approved.
This document sets out the objectives, methodology and deliverables for this review.
The methodology employed involved one to one interviews, facilitated workshops with
representatives from each SAC Directorate, interviews with the senior stakeholders and interviews
with individual ICT teams. These enabled the consultants to gain a customer view of ICT delivery
and to understand the council’s business requirements and business change needs. Separate
meetings were held with the Chief Executive and with Directors .
During the process, regular information exchange meetings were held with the Executive Director
Resources, Governance & Organisation and the Head of Finance & ICT. An interim review
meeting was held with the Chief Executive, Executive Director of Resources Governance &
Organisation, Head of Finance and ICT and Head of HR.
As part of the governance arrangements for this work the consultants also presented to the
Corporate Management Team.
Finally, a comparison was made between South Ayrshire Council’s ICT provision and those of
other similar local councils using the Socitm benchmarking data.
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3 Observations and Recommendations
Stakeholder Feedback
It is fairly evident, and generally recognised within the council, that the ICT staff achieves a
reasonable level of service despite the limited resources available. There has been praise for
some individuals who are prepared to go the extra mile. Equally there were some examples cited
where service has been found wanting. It is not the purpose of this report to single out individual
successes or failings, but rather to give an overall opinion of what has been found.

Support to the users is patchy, the consensus being that ‘if you know who to go to its fine.’
However, there are no agreed levels of service in place, therefore there can be no
management of the perceived issues.

The Help Desk is not highly regarded. The only interface being online forms that require the
user to know what the problem is in order to report it. Evidence would suggest that if the
wrong information is given, then the fault has to be reported again.

ICT are not generally aware of business requirements. There seems to be a ‘disconnect’
between the service planning process and ICT. This is not necessarily a failing on the part
of ICT, but more a process issue within the council.

ICT is not regarded as a business partner, but as a technical resource only. This is in part
due to lack of resource, but also there is a confidence issue.

ICT are not seen as being proactive.

There is a lack of clarity around support for package upgrades. In some instances it
appears to be provided by the third party vendor, in others by the user area and in some
cases by ICT.

There is a lack of programme and project management capability and capacity.

Directorates desires to use a range of bandwidth intensive mobile devices, such as tablets,
is not matched by South Ayrshire’s current network capacity or design. Any plans to
migrate applications to externally hosted services or to expand the use of mobile devices
would require a detailed assessment of the network capacity and topology.

There are a number of single points of failure where too much reliance is placed on
individual members of staff. This is likely to become more pronounced because of the age
profile of ICT staff and a lack of succession planning. It was also noted that recruitment into
posts and the skills required is problematic.
The following paragraphs in this section set out in a little more detail the findings for each of the
key areas of investigation, as set out in the original brief, and make some early recommendations.
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Strategic Planning and Management
The current ICT strategy is now out of date and in need of a refresh to reflect the Council’s
changing objectives and savings imperatives. This report sets out the key elements of the strategy,
and as such this strategy should provide the technology, infrastructure and application components
required to deliver the council’s change agenda in areas including;





flexible working,
information sharing across organisational boundaries (e.g. Social Care and NHS)
intelligence lead decision making,
online digital service provision, and
technology enabled workflow.
In any organisation, and Local Government is no exception, it is the information that is the key
resource. It is the information we hold that tells us what our customers have and/or want/need. It is
the information we collect that tells us how we are performing. It is the information we interpret that
gives us the intelligence we need to flex and change our business to suit the prevailing conditions.
It is the information that will give us the strategic advantage. Equally, the means and technology by
which we communicate is important. The ICT strategy must therefore sit alongside, and in support
of, an Information Management Strategy that must define the information needed to support the
Council’s activities.
ICT as a function needs to be about Information Management, not just technology management.
This represents a significant change for the council. It will, therefore, be more appropriate in future
to have an Information Management Strategy that is clearly linked to the council’s overall business
objectives.
Key Recommendation Set 1
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
Define an Information Management Strategy for the Council including
responsibilities.
Map out the high level information needs of the Directorates.
Agree the key components of the ICT strategy and agree the budgetary
implications and high level timetable for delivering the strategy.
Map out the key ICT projects required over the next 3 years to deliver the
Council’s Transformation agenda, which will include a change in delivery
channels.
Agree a Resource Plan (including the required skills) to deliver the priority ICT
projects on behalf of the transformation agenda.
Governance and Commissioning Process
Following our review of the various existing Governance arrangements and interviews with a
number of stakeholders, it was observed that although there is a defined framework for both
project commissioning, budget setting and monitoring, Directorate requirements are often not
shared with ICT early enough. This makes it difficult for the ICT team to allocate resources
effectively. Equally, the annual Corporate and Directorate planning process does not effectively
engage ICT. Added to this, the lack of Directorate business knowledge within ICT means that the
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business is unlikely to engage in business terms with ICT. The Governance structure and the
Commissioning processes used to agree ICT work priorities are therefore not fit for purpose.
For ICT to be linked effectively to the overall priorities of the council, there must be robust
governance arrangements in place, for the wider organisational processes as well as for ICT.
It is not the role of this report to determine the governance procedures used in other parts of the
council, but an assumption is made that there is a clear process for agreeing corporate priorities
and tying that to the budget making process. As a minimum, we would expect ICT to be seen as
an ‘Approval Gate’ – with a seat at CMT to ensure that all proposals are both costed and comply
with the current strategy.
All programmes of work need to go through a Business Case Approval process, where each
programme must demonstrate that it meets the council’s objectives, delivers the required benefits
and savings and is affordable. Again, ICT should be involved in the approval of all Business
Cases, via the arrangements set out at 3.3.1.
Governance for ICT needs to operate at two levels; the strategic and the operational. At the
strategic level decisions about investment priorities will be recommended to EOG for inclusion in
the appropriate process. Such consideration should include how the proposed investment supports
the council’s overall objectives, the detailed business case – including Return On Investment (ROI)
- and how it fits within the Information Management strategy.
This ‘strategic level’ group, probably known as the Information Management Board, would also be
responsible for monitoring the development and implementation of previously agreed initiatives,
reporting conflicts non delivery and other failures to EOG.
At an operational level, the issues will be aligned to the delivery of service. This group could be
known as the ICT Operational Board for example, and responsible for measuring performance
against Service Level Agreements, overseeing supply contracts, taking customer requirements into
account and generally ensuring that an appropriate level of service is delivered. Shortcomings
would be reported to the Information Management Board (and thence EOG if necessary).
It is important that the representation at any governance board is at the appropriate level, e.g.
Service Head or above, to ensure a corporate, robust and consistent approach is taken. This,
together with the suggested terms of reference above, should ensure that ICT is positioned to
genuinely support the business of the council and that any potential issues are flagged early and
receive appropriate levels of senior management direction.
3.3.1 Information Management Board
3.3.1.1 Suggested Membership





Executive Director (Chair)
Chief Information Officer (see Section 3.4 below)
Senior manager from ICT - Information management function (see Section 6 below)
Relevant Heads of Service including Senior representative from each Directorate (At
least Service Head level)
Senior business users from the organisation with specialist knowledge as appropriate
and by invitation only.
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3.3.1.2 Responsible for






IM Strategy and Policy
ICT Strategy
Programme and Project Management Boards
Development Plan
Monitoring all ICT projects
Reporting high level results to EOG.
3.3.2 ICT Operational Board
3.3.2.1 Suggested Membership




Chief Information Officer (Chair)
Senior manager from each ICT functional service area (see Section 6 below) Customer
Services Manager
Key Business User representatives (At least Third Tier Manager level)
Supplier representative(s) as appropriate and by invitation
3.3.2.2 Responsible for





Ensuring the day to day delivery of services
Monitoring of Contracts
Technology Plans
Supporting the work of the IM Board
Reporting high level results to the IM Board
Key Recommendation Set 2
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
Establish a Governance structure, with a clearly defined framework that facilitates
change.
The annual directorate and corporate planning process must accurately identify
revenue and capital requirements to allow meaningful forward resource planning.
Robust prioritisation process in place at a corporate level to determine what will be
delivered.
All projects pass through ‘Project Gates’ that include Business Case and Detailed
Business Cases or PID and each project with an ICT element to require ICT sign off.
All projects above an agreed tolerance (Scope, Strategic Importance and Budget)
should go to the Strategic ICT and Procurement Board for Authorisation to proceed
and on-going monitoring.
All escalation around non-delivery, project risks and resource conflict, should be
reported up to CMT.
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Functional Model as Basis of New Structure
The current model and structure of the ICT service reflects the more technical roles that they
undertake. The senior person in ICT reports through the Head of Finance and ICT who in turn
reports to the Executive Director – Resources, Governance & Organisation.
If the Council is to move away from the present technology led model and create an environment
where ICT is an active partner in the transformation process, then the structure will need to
fundamentally change. The leadership role - designated in this Report as the Chief Information
Officer (CIO) - should report directly to the Executive Director.. The comments made on
governance in Section 3.3 above amplify this need.
In addition to the proposed changes to the ICT model, the council will need to create a much more
rigorous Project Delivery culture. To support this there will be the need for a clearly documented
projects framework that facilitates the commissioning of work based on business need, savings
imperatives and robust business case. Investment will need to be made in suitably trained Project
Managers. Such people would be responsible for managing projects from end to end, in
conjunction with business users. The creation of a corporate Programme Management Office
(PMO) with access to the appropriate toolset would greatly assist and would also give cohesive
quality assurance to all project delivery. Potentially, this function could be funded by individual
projects. This would enable numbers to be flexed according to need and encourage better forward
planning.
These structural changes are a fundamental component of the changes that we believe the council
both needs and wishes to make. Detailed planning, consultation, training and implementation are
absolutely essential if appositive outcome is to be achieved. Further detail is contained in later
sections of this report.
Key Recommendation Set 3
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
vii.
viii.
ix.
x.
xi.
Agree the detailed organisational structure for ICT, including the reporting lines and
creation of the CIO Role, which is designed to support the required changes.
Define new Job Descriptions and Person Specifications.
Agree a strategy for implementing the new structure and the succession planning.
Establish an effective transition plan.
Set up detailed training and communications plans.
Define a ‘new projects’ framework - work commissioned based on business needs,
savings imperatives and business case.
Prioritise key projects and activities based on corporate business need and the availability
of scarce resources.
Create a corporate Programme Management Office (PMO), to support governance and
assure the quality of all projects being delivered.
Use the governance structure proposed to engender a strong Project Delivery culture.
Invest in trained Project Mangers that manage projects from end to end in conjunction with
business users.
Invest in the appropriate tool kits to support the work of the PMO.
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Technical Stability
In any period of change it is vital to ensure ongoing delivery of service. In this case, the technical
stability of systems needs to be assured as the change programme is enacted. The ICT team
interviews highlighted that in general, sufficient resilience was in place around core operating
systems, desktop applications, email and line of business systems. The consensus is that these
core applications were now sufficiently documented to allow them to be supported. However, some
areas of risk still remain.
Oracle, the council’s Enterprise Resource Management system is a ‘high maintenance’ item and
will continue to require constant patching, which is difficult given the lack of Oracle support
expertise. At the time of interviewing, SAC were finding it difficult to attract the right level of Data
Base Administration (DBA) and Oracle support expertise. This system has now been in use for
nearly as many years as the original regional council system it replaced. The council should
consider moving the delivery in the short term to an external hosting/supported model. It would be
prudent to consider replacing in the medium term, for something appropriate to an organisation of
the size of SAC.,with a review of this being commenced within 5 years.
There were some instances cited where user areas were held responsible for ensuring upgrades
are implemented. Clear areas of responsibility and accountability will need to be defined going
forward, particularly in a period of change.
The data network is absolutely key to the delivery of both current and future systems. Some
concern was expressed in the directorate workshops that the resilience and capacity of the
network were inadequate. Although initial indications are these issues are predominantly in
schools, it would be prudent to investigate this area further as it is fundamental to the delivery of
services going forward. It is also a vital part of the link between Local and Central Government and
subject to an agreement for connection to the Public Service Network Work (PSN).
Key Recommendation Set 4
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
Review the ICT Capital Programme plans to ensure that the capital investment
deployed around infrastructure stabilisation is being spent in the right areas.
Ensure that the networking performance, topology and capacity is fit for the future
purpose in light of the proposals to move some applications into managed cloud
environments.
Consider the replacement of the Oracle system in the medium term
Develop a robust methodology for upgrading systems. This should define
responsibilities, time scales and testing regimes as a minimum.
Customer Perspective
In terms of moving forward to a model where ICT is viewed as a preferred business partner, some
work needs to be undertaken to improve the reputation of ICT fairly quickly. Feedback from the
Directorate workshops reinforced this view, with customers commenting that some ICT teams
acted as blockers to change, others failed to own a problem and others showed a lack of business
knowledge. Although it was commented that some ICT individuals were proactive and helpful, you
had to know whom to ask and too often problems had to be escalated up to the head of service
before they were resolved.
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It is difficult to make specific recommendations about how the customer perspective of ICT can be
improved. Attitudes take time to change, but generally, an improvement in some of the operational
processes as set out in section 3.7 below, will help the process. Much of what is required is down
to good leadership and improved communication and ‘people skills’ to help build better
relationships.
Operational Processes
Observation and comments from the user community indicate that ICT service management
processes, such as they are, are designed around the needs of the ICT team rather than designed
to support the needs of the customer. The Service Desk processes in particular are overly
complicated and lack a customer feedback loop. The general consensus is that you have to know
exactly what the problem is before reporting it.
A lack of clear operational processes inevitably means that there is no proper measurement or
reporting of service levels. This means that any complaint about poor service, whilst it may be a
valid one, is purely anecdotal evidence. Agreed levels of service need to be put in place that
clearly identify what is to be delivered, at a specified level of availability during specified hours.
Before this can be done with any degree of robustness, the ICT department needs to redesign its
operational processes and adopt a service management regime across its entire business. A well
proven model already exists in the form of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), which is an entire set
of defined processes specifically designed for running an ICT service. It was originally developed
by central government for the (now defunct) Central Computing and Telecommunications Agency
(CCTA). Not all parts of this model will necessarily be appropriate in SAC; but many will, and
should be implemented.
Key Recommendation Set 5
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
Adopt a Service Management regime such as ITIL.
Carry out a review of all internal processes - involving the user community where
appropriate.
Define and agree levels of service with customers for all systems.
Establish Management Information and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Implement new Service Desk Processes.
Future Resource Profile of ICT
Individual ICT teams have good technical knowledge within their particular realms of expertise;
there are however, individual points of failure in areas where expertise resides with one individual.
However, the resourcing model for ICT has not evolved as the Council’s change agenda has
evolved and so the ICT service lacks business knowledge, business analysis skills or project
management capability. There is also an issue for the near future in connection with succession
planning; in particular the age profile within the ICT section is an area of risk. The Council should
consider finding a number of specialised partners to support the basic infrastructure delivery. This
is usually known as ‘Right Sourcing’ as opposed to ‘Total Outsourcing’ where one partner is
selected to deliver the whole service. Such a change would enable a change in focus for the future
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and allow ICT to develop capabilities around becoming an enabler to business change as opposed
to a deliverer of technology services.
The Reviewers used data provided by SAC to feed into the benchmarking data collected by
Socitm. This showed that compared with other councils with similar functions and of comparable
size, SAC has around 2/3 of the resource and revenue budget of others.
Right Sourcing Model
The current ICT operations are very largely run in-house. There is a sizable data centre which
physically at least, is large enough to support a considerably larger operation than might ever be
necessary for SAC. As referenced elsewhere in this report, the resources within ICT are stretched,
contain many ‘single points of failure’ and are concerned only with providing the absolute minimum
of support necessary.
The trend is for organisations to move away from supporting large data centres with all the
attendant costs of managing the inherent risks from physical security, data back up and logical
security. Many of the systems that SAC run are fairly standard and could be procured to run
remotely from the council. Good examples of this are the e-mail and entire desktop suite. Most
suppliers now offer hosted solutions for their products. This small scale letting of contracts for
discreet services is known as Right Sourcing. A large-scale outsourcing exercise of ICT is not
advocated nor is it recommended. They inevitably end up being at least as expensive as any in
house provision – particularly where a provider inherits a less than optimum infrastructure. They
also tie organisations into long term arrangements that cease to be beneficial fairly quickly. The
right source route typically uses much shorter agreements than the large scale outsourcing
options. The advantages of placing discrete packages outside an organisation is that it is possible
to procure ‘Best of Breed’ type service arrangements that provide not only a good service delivery
with skilled and specialised support, but also provide a better cost model, usually on a per user per
annum basis. This gives organisations much more control of their costs as they either grow, or in
the case of most local authorities shrink their head count. It also removes the (usually high)
overhead cost of ownership from the equation. Such arrangements also considerably reduce the
risk of a failure to business critical systems.
Within this model, consideration also needs to be given to increasing the use of the thin client
approach to providing access to systems. This model utilises software on the PC, or other terminal
device, to provide the connectivity to the server based system – wherever it is located. This will
enable a high degree of flexibility in how systems are accessed and from where, giving a more
flexible approach to delivering services at the point of need. It also has the benefit of requiring
much less highly specified PCs at the point of use giving further economies.
Due care will need to be exercised to ensure that requirements around PSN are catered for.
Following the general market trends outlined in section 2.4 above, SAC should consider moving to
this more flexible ‘Right Sourced’ set of solutions that make use of these new methods of
provision. This will need to done alongside the introduction of Information Management and
Governance procedures outlined in sections 3.2 and 3.3.
In general then, SAC should as a matter of strategy;

Move away from in-house developed systems.

Should look to replace ‘line of business systems’ using a ‘best of breed’ approach from the
providers who operate in the particular market place.
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
These ‘line of business systems’ should generally be supported by the vendors and operate
in a ‘cloud’ environment.

General ‘office’ systems – including telephony, should be placed in the cloud.

Integrate mobile and fixed telephony.

As far as possible, systems should be implemented without any customisation. Rather,
business processes should be re-engineered.

Adopt a thin client and browser approach to delivering systems to the end user.

The ICT help desk should be the single point of contact for all users in the first instance.
Key Recommendation Set 6
i.
ii.
iii.
Undertake some soft market testing to establish which Core Infrastructure and system
components can be supported by ‘managed cloud’ partners.
Extend the use of ‘thin client’ approach to system access.
Consider selecting an Oracle Partner to deliver the enterprise resource planning needs
and to support the hosting and support of Oracle on an on-going basis
Project and Programme Delivery
Major pieces of work in any organisation will only deliver their full benefits if the implementation is
executed in a planned manner. Work belonging to a theme would normally grouped into a
programme of discreet projects. There would appear to be little project management capability or
capacity within the current ICT structure. The Reviewers also observed evidence that a number of
ICT projects were delivered with little or no consultation with the end user. This was evidenced by
being made aware of projects with serious overruns, projects that were not clearly defined or
resourced and projects that that were being managed without budget or benefits profiles.
One of the impacts of not having a formal programme and project framework is that managers from
within services, who already have challenging day jobs, are being asked to manage complex
projects with a large element of technology. These projects would be more effectively delivered by
trained project managers working within a clearly defined framework. The other impact is that
projects are not properly planned across the council and as a consequence the ICT team receive
ad-hoc unplanned requests for resource, which they cannot always accommodate.
There are opportunities to strengthen the whole programme and projects management cycle within
the council, including the criteria by which projects are selected, the benefits management
processes, determining the case for change and the return on investment (ROI) process. These
activities would benefit from being supported by an appropriate ‘tool kit’ often referred to as Project
Portfolio tools. This approach would lead to a strengthening of a ‘gating’ process that removes
projects with limited or no ROI from the current priority list and makes better use of scarce
resources.
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Key Recommendation Set 7
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
Define a new Projects Framework – With work commissioned based on business needs,
savings imperatives and business case. Key projects and activities will be prioritised
based on corporate business needs and the availability of scarce resources.
Establish a stronger Project Delivery culture.
Invest in trained Project Managers that manage projects from end to end in-conjunction
with business users.
Invest in an Enterprise Project Portfolio tool to enable programme and project tracking
across the organisation.
Invest in a corporate Programme Management Office (PMO), to support governance and
assure the quality of projects being delivered.
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4 High Level Implementation Plan
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5 Costs of Initial Implementation
Role
Interim CIO
Programme Manager
Procurement Project Manager
Internal procurement costs
Networking Consultant
HR Support
Oracle Requirements Support
PMO Support
Legal Contracts Advice
Cloud Services Specialist
Assumptions
Based on retaining an interim for 6 months 4 days a
week
Based on employing a senior Programme Director for
12 months thereafter the remaining elements of the
programme will be mainly HR related and can be
headed by internal HR
Based on employing an external procurement expert
full time for 4 months to manage the Soft Market
Testing and Right Sourcing procurement process
Assume internal procurement will provide sign off of
the procurement approach and be integral to any
negotiations
This is a worst case estimate assuming that the
SOCITM consultant carries out an initial review of the
current Network and needs to be retained further to
resolve issues and or provide further support to the
internal team to implement a revised design. This
includes the initial 10K cost of the review
Assume South Ayrshire Council will provide HR
support to the restructure
We have assumed you will need 6 weeks consultancy
support to document your current and future Oracle
needs informing the right sourcing work
Assume 12 months PMO support full time, we have
assumed that the council will provide this person
Assume internal legal team will provide legal support
to the right sourcing workstream
We have assumed you will need 6 weeks specialist
Cloud based consultancy support
Resource Costs
Cost
£81,600
£150,000
£52,000
TBC
£64,000
TBC
£21,000
TBC
TBC
£24,000
£392,600
Other Costs
Systems Costs
Replacement Service Desk
£42,000
Network Upgrade Costs
Budgetary figure only. Does not include the cost of
laying fibre, just the cost of additional switching
hardware, masts, but current requirements are
unknown.
£25,000
The costs set out in the above table relate to setting up a new model of operating. As indicated, it
is assumed that some input will be required from existing resources. This initial implementation
would put the new model in place, start the procurement process in the key areas and replace the
Service Desk system. These are all ‘one off’ costs.
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6 Proposed Functional Structure
A stronger future model for the ICT service would be structured around four functional area. The
rationale for this is set out in Sections 3.3 and 3.4.
• Cross Cutting
Programmes
• Directorate
Programmes
• Enabling Programmes
eg Oracle
•Corporate Systems
•Infrastructure
•Mobile Devices
•External Partners
Programmes
and Projects
Contracts
Management
Information
Management
Customer
Services
• Security and
Compliance
• Records Management
• Business Intelligence
• Business Partners and
Integration
• Service Desk
Development of a detailed organisational structure to support this model will require to be
undertaken as set out in the Detailed Implementation Plan.
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7 Likely Operational and Capital Budget Implications
Current Expenditure and Comparisons
Before discussing the potential revenue and capital budget implications for recommendations
made in this report, it is important to understand the current levels of investment in ICT and how
that compares to other similar organisations. The amount that any organisation spends on ICT is
related to their business sector. Typically, Local Government spends around 2 to 3 percent of it
total budget on ICT. Socitm collects benchmarking data from most Councils in the UK and a
comparison of the amount expended on ICT by South Ayrshire Council in comparison to other
similar Councils has been carried out.
The data used for this comparison was supplied to Socitm and is summarised below.
Item
Users of the ICT Service
FTE Staff in ICT
Workstations (PCs, laptops, thin client
terminals)
Council’s net expenditure
Population
ICT expenditure
Value
3000 (1800 Corporate, 1200 Teaching Staff)
There are also 14000 pupil accounts, but
these are not included in the benchmark
44 (41 + 2 Vacancies +1 secondee)
7000 including schools
£268.762m (2013/14)
112,799
£3.651m
The results of the comparison indicate that whilst South Ayrshire Council is ‘Broadly typical and not
an obvious outlier on any metric tested’ the level of expenditure as a percentage of the overall
budget is considered to be on the low side. However, there is no guarantee that some IT related
expenditure might not be charged to other accounts.
Given the results, it would not be unreasonable to expect the total expenditure on ICT to rise over
time to about 2% of the total budget, ie around £5,375m. at today’s costs.
Future Budgetary Implications
Given the continuing pressure on public sector spending, it is important that services are operated
in an efficient and effective manner. ICT has a major role to play in ensuring that services are
delivered in the most cost effective way possible. This will inevitably mean that some increase in
expenditure on ICT related issues will be necessary in order for the council to make efficiency
savings in other parts of its operation.
Assuming the Council chooses to implement the recommendations made in this report, not all the
costs would fall directly on the revenue budget. Much of what is recommended is predicated on the
adoption of a programme and project based approach to transforming services within the council’s
remit. This would allow some expenditure to be funded from capital. For example, the costs
associated with the programme and project management and the investment required in fixed
infrastructure such as the network. Clearly, any capital expenditure will ultimately have an impact
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on the revenue budget, but it would enable the costs to be spread and for some of them to be
borne by other related major capital programmes.
The adoption of a ‘Right Sourcing’ approach would also change the incidence of cost. Some of the
budget currently allocated to supporting systems, for example, might be used to fund more user
facing roles in the organisation.
More detailed work and some soft market testing will be necessary in order to arrive at more
accurate costs. There will of course be some savings made elsewhere, for example the cost of the
data centre. Equally, if ICT genuinely becomes an enabler of change, it will be possible to
generate efficiency savings in other parts of the organisation as a direct result of business
transformation supported by the new ICT regime.
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8 Conclusion
Conclusion
The brief set out at the commencement of this review has, we believe, been met. However, during
the course of the work, connections and links with other parts of the organisation have resulted in a
broader view being taken.
The council needs to develop a more robust approach to the management of its information – and
its communication - because that is the key resource, not the technology. An approach that uses
the governance and structure outlined in this report will give the council a strong strategic
advantage as it endeavours to deliver excellent and meaningful services to the citizens of South
Ayrshire; even in the face of what must surely be a shrinking budget.
There are some fairly major challenges on the near horizon, for example the ongoing integration of
health and social care, the whole question of different ways of working and office accommodation.
These programmes of work, using the methods and techniques proposed in this paper, would be
well placed to bring about a fundamental change to the council’s business. This would include
financial benefit as well as more effective and efficient delivery of service to the citizens.
Acknowledgements
The authors of this report would like to acknowledge the valuable time given so willingly by many
members of staff during the course of their work. It would be wrong to single out individuals for
specific mention, but we are indebted to those who spent time arranging numerous meetings and
venues for us. We have been made most welcome on every visit we have made to Ayr, both by
staff and the people of Ayr. Thank you.
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Glossary
Thin Client
Cloud
Line Business System
Data Centre
General Office Systems
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Where the user interfaces with a terminal
device, eg a PC, but where the actual
computation takes place elsewhere. Such an
approach usually means the specification, and
therefore the cost, of the user device is much
reduced.
Cloud computing is where the required
processing and storage is provided in third party
data centres. It relies on the sharing of resource
to provide economies of scale. Access is either
via high speed links to an organisation’s
network or, increasingly, via the internet
A system dedicated to a particular aspect of a
business, for example, payroll or management
of planning applications.
Physical building where a (usually) large
number of computer servers and data storage
devices are located.
Those systems used by most people during
their day to work, such as word processing, email, diary management and so on. Usually they
provide the ability to interwork with colleagues.
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