Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest.

The minutes of the meeting held on 6 February 2019 were signed as a true record.

Matter Arising:  Minute 26 (Consultation Responses: Business Rates Retention Reform and Review of Local Authorities’ Relative Needs and Resources) - It was reported that the report recommendations were agreed at the meeting of Cabinet on 12 February and subsequently Council on 19 February.

Outstanding issues have been picked up in the Work Programme

There were no outstanding issues.

Briefing Note

The Board received a presentation which provided information on progress being made in respect of the new ICT strategy.

The presentation set out:

·  The current ICT strategy position which heavily focussed on the Kickstart programme and the introduction of the move to Friargate.

·  What has been learned from the current strategy and what was being taken into the development of the new ICT strategy.

·  New strategy vision – designed alongside the emerging thinking around One Coventry and the future savings targets.

·  Key themes of engage, optimise, empower and transform.

·  ICT and digital service current position focussing on new service plan and target operating model.

·  Revision of Service Level Agreement and key performance indicators (KPI). Current KPI focussed on ‘outage’ and data for the first three quarters of 2018/19 was presented.

·  Challenges and next steps

·  Digital Coventry including supporting driverless cars, City Fibre, superfast broadband, public Wi-Fi and ‘Good Gym’

The Board questioned officers on aspects of the presentation including:

·  The migration from Mitel to Skype for Business and 8x8

·  Cyber security

·  More information about the Local Digital Declaration

·  How the City Council compared to other local authorities

·  The need for the strategy to be user friendly and citizen focussed

·  Savings targets

·  Access to public wi-fi in the city centre

During discussion, the Board stressed the importance of engaging with citizens as the services users, to focus on their needs and how best to provide them with a user friendly interface.  In line with this, the Board also asked that officers investigate the possibility of providing PayPal as an option for customers to pay online.

Following consideration of the points made during the presentation and matters raised at the meeting, the Board asked for further information on the following:

·  ‘Council-as-a-platform’ initiative

·  Increased usage of SharePoint and OneDrive

·  Good Gym

·  Figures for each online service open to citizens (usage and success rate)

In addition, the Board asked that they receive the draft strategy for consideration before it is finalised. 

RESOLVED that the Board note the presentation and agreed:

(a)  To recommend to the Cabinet Member for Strategic Finance and Resources:

(i)  That the ICT Strategy 2.0’s primary focus must be on the easiness, usability and availability for citizens and avoiding “reinventing the wheel”. There should be a more cooperative and collaborative approach which will help public services improve.

(ii)  To re-visit the option of using Paypal as part of the payment review.

c)  That the draft strategy be brought to Board for consideration before it is finalised and that it should include the outcomes of the digital assessment being undertaken by SOCITIM.

d)  That future technical reports should be accompanied by notes written in plain English for ease of understanding.

Briefing Note

This matter was deferred to a future meeting.

Report of the Scrutiny Co-ordinator

The Work Programme was noted now with the inclusion of the above deferred item (Delivery against Social Value Policy) and the Draft ICT Strategy.

Any other items of public business which the Chair decides to take as matters of urgency because of the special circumstances involved

There were no other items of public business.