Issue - meetings

Notice of general exception to Regulation 9 of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012

Notice is hereby given in accordance with Regulation 9 of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 that it was impracticable to give 28 days’ notice of the intention to take a Key Decision by the Cabinet on 27 April 2017. The Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee has been informed of this matter in accordance with Regulation 10.

The Director of Corporate Resources presented the draft cabinet report.  The Census ICT Partnership was transitioning to a cloud based model, away from locally hosted data centres. A new strategy was adopted at the Joint Committee in December 2016 and in order to ensure that the member Councils had access to the right knowledge and experience to maintain the new cloud hosting environment effectively, the support of a managed service provider (MSP) was required. Adur & Worthing Councils led on a procurement exercise, with the full involvement of officers from Mid Sussex District Council and Horsham District Council, to identify a supplier for the MSP service.

At the invitation of the Chairman, Members discussed the:

·         total share of the costs by authority

·         differences in ‘migration’ and ‘support’

·         number of tenderers

·         reputation of the tenderers, and assurance

·         use of third party contractors (if any)

·         exit strategy described in the risk assessment section of the report; and

·         the current and future success of the shared service

The Director of Corporate Services thanked members for their views and reminded members that the tender process had been conducted according to the council’s procurement code. The Director of Corporate Services proposed that technical clarifications be sourced from officers and sent directly to members of the group. It was further explained that consequent to decisions made over the last two years, the shared service arrangement was now leaner and shared procurement had been successful.  However, future governance arrangements, particularly the joint committee, needed to be reviewed.

The group, subject to receiving further clarifications by email, endorsed the report.