(To receive an update on the Assure Project from the Assistant Director, People and Assistant Director, Growth & Regeneration)
Minutes:
The Chair invited the Assistant Director, People to provide an update on the Assure Project.
The Assistant Director reported that Assure was a product which was an upgrade to our current M3 system which was our Planning, Environmental Health and Land Charges system which provided a back-office process to deliver these services. This new product would be browser based. Once all processes had been moved over it would enable more flexibility in terms of access and for staff and would support the over arching ICT strategy to move to cloud based services where appropriate.
It was reported that this product would be provided by NEC (previously Northgate). It was expected that NEC would be shortly issuing a 12-month de-support notice for M3 platform. As such it would be necessary to upgrade to the new platform. However, it should be noted that in the interim NEC remained committed to supporting the system.
It was reported that a project team had been set up to deliver the project comprising of the Assistant Director, People and the Assistant Director, Growth & Regeneration, as well as Heads of Service from ICT, Planning and Environmental Health and support staff from all of the teams including Customer Services and Housing. Staff training was required on the document production system and this had been delayed due to an issue within the test system, from NEC’s side. This training had been booked for July but was cancelled at short notice and the Head of ICT was in regular contact to seek a resolution however, this was still not resolved. Although NEC were committed to resolving this within the timeframe to enable the Council to complete the project by the end of the de-commissioning period.
Internally, the Planning team continued to work to convert letter templates however the final process moves could not be completed until training had been completed.
In terms of the Environmental Health team there were two areas to the system, in terms of document production, the same issues were faced by the Environmental Team as by the Planning Team. The second side related to licensing, where the project team were currently assessing the options between the licensing options within Assure or the options within the myTamworth portal provided by Civica and which were the best fit for the organisation in terms of cost, customer accessibility, and alignment with the ICT strategy.
The Committee sought and received the following clarifications:
1. The current risk rating for this project, where the Assistant Director, People reported that currently this would be a low risk, however, it could move to a medium risk when the Council received the de-support notice for M3.
2. Whether the preparation work within the Environmental Health team had been progressed, where it was reported that a Licensing Officer had been tasked with this project.
3. The option to use myTamworth portal for licensing activities where it was reported that work continued to investigate which solution would provide the best fit for the organisation.
RESOLVED that a further written briefing be provided to the Committee setting out the status of the project and the risks posed.
(Moved by Councillor D Cook and seconded by Councillor M Cook)