ICT Strategy 2013 - Hays

Business ICT Strategy 

2013-2016 

Version 1.0 

April 2013

CONTENTS 

1 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 

2 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 

3 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 

4 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 Page 2 of 30

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.” 


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. 


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. 


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. 


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 


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. 


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. 


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. 


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 ` 

Working in an 

integrated way 

Protecting the 

environment 

Flexible 

Infrastructure 

Engaging with 

our partners 

Customer 

focused 

Collaborative 

working 

Excellence for our 

customers and 

communities 

Adaptable and 

appropriate skilled 

workforce 

Figure 1 - Alignment of ICT Strategic Themes and Core Council Values 


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 


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. 


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 3 rd 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. 


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. 


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 

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. 

3 Prioritise supportability 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. 

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 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. 


8 Ensure value for money 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. 

9 Enable agility in ICT 

Services 

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. 

10 Ensure scalability 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. 

11 Maximise interoperability 

across ICT systems 

The design of ICT systems and services will consider the ease of 

data exchange, and system-to-system communication. 

12 Focus on robust 

information management 

and security 

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. 

13 Compliance with the law ICT systems, services and processes will be designed to comply 

with relevant legislation and regulation. 

14 Ensure data is accessible 

and manage master data 

15 Maintain effective ICT 

supplier relationships 

16 Enable effective 

partnership working 

17 Provide easy to use 

systems 

18 Ensure environmental 

sustainability 

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 


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. 


The following table quantifies projects by category. Please Note: The numbers in ( ) show which of 

the total in each group are already underway. 

Strategic 

Tactical / Operational 

Project / Business priority High Medium Low High Medium Low 

Infrastructure 5 1 - 6 (3) 3 2 

Organisation-wide 9 (3) 7 9 (1) - - - 

Corporate and departmental 6 (1) 5 2 20 (9) 4 1 

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. 


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 Status Recommendation 

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. 


effectiveness 

Potential Deliver in 2013- 

2014 

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. 

Information 

management 


effectiveness 


effectiveness 

Information 

management 

Potential 

Proceed to 

business case for 

delivery project 


2014 

Potential 

Potential 

Table 4 – High priority strategic Infrastructure recommendations 

Proceed to 



Proceed to 




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. 



Intranet and enterprise search 

Includes: Modern intranet and 

collaborative working platform. Unified 

search of pages, unstructured data and 

people information 

Collaboration Potential Proceed to 



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. 

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. 


effectiveness 

Information 

management 


effectiveness 

Information 

management 


2014 

Potential 

Potential 

Potential 

Proceed to 

analysis based on 

T+E programme, 

business case as 

initial output 

Proceed to 

analysis based on 

T+E programme, 

business case as 

initial output 

Proceed to 



Customer service Potential Proceed to 

delivery based on 

T+E and Customer 

First programme 

Table 5 – High priority strategic organisation-wide recommendations 


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. 



Child social care and education (CYP) 

Includes: technology procurement in the 

context of Capita ONE contract expiry and 

CCH/CYP department merger. 


effectiveness 

Potential Proceed to 


analysis project 

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). 


effectiveness 


effectiveness 


effectiveness 


effectiveness 

Potential 

Potential 

Potential 

Potential 

Proceed to 



Proceed to 



Proceed to 



Proceed to 



Table 6 – High priority strategic corporate and departmental recommendations 


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. 


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. 


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 3 rd 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. 


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. 


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. 


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 


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 


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. 

iii. 

iv. 

A number of the opportunities recognise the need to update or replace legacy or end of life 

systems and platforms 

Whilst savings and consolidation are key benefits, many of the opportunities also deliver 

significant improvements for internal or external users. 

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

ICT Strategy 2013 - Hays

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