Report of the Assistant Director Resources/Treasurer.

The Fire Authority considered the report of the Assistant Director Resources/Treasurer (ADR/T) seeking Fire Authority approval for the East Sussex Fire & Rescue IT Strategy 2020-2025 and the associated funding requirements. 

The Authority were given a brief outline of the Strategy, which built on the significant progress that had been made since the decision to outsource IT Services to telent in November 2016 and embark on a transformation programme of the core IT infrastructure and applications.  The IT Strategy deliverables had been developed in support of and aligned with the Corporate Plan.  The deliverables also took into consideration the Integrated Risk Management Plan, Operational Response Review and the findings of the HMICFRS 2019 inspection report.  The Authority were informed that in June 2020 SLT had agreed the priorities for agreed IT Strategy funding as being:

·        Mobilising Strategy Project 21

·        CRM

·        Firewatch

·        Performance Management

·        Electronic Document Management System (EDRMS)

·        IT Infrastructure Projects / Office 365

·        Information Security

Members were informed that a detailed prioritisation process conducted by the Assistant Directors included a scaling back of the Service’s technology ambitions in line with the priorities and capacity, this had reduced the project funding shortfall to £0.20m (excluding the CRM Project where a report on project costs and the need for additional funding was expected to SLT in the autumn) over the five years of the IT Strategy.

The Lead Member for IT thanked officers on behalf of the Fire Authority for their significant work on this strategy document and commended the paper to Members.  There had been a lot of work on improving the IT provision already and this paper took the proposed changes to a new level.  Successes so far included the imminent move to Office 365, improvements to IT security, and the changes to working practices that had to be brought in at speed as a result of COVID-19.  Members thanked the Lead Member for his comments as it was a very technical paper and his reassurance was valuable given his experience in the IT sector.  

Some Members raised their concerns about the carbon cost of IT, whilst they were keen on the possibilities of IT reducing travel, there was also significant hidden carbon costs in IT provision.  There were also some questions about whether the outsourcing of IT since 2016 had represented value for money.  The ADR/T explained that Officers had a responsibility for driving efficiencies and whilst this strategy put in place funding, each project would have to produce a business case including identification of benefits (cashable and non-cashable) to unlock that funding.  The ADR/T confirmed that the Strategy document dealt with sustainability, but that ESFRS doesn’t currently measure its IT carbon footprint.  Officers would take away these comments from this meeting and work with telent to look at this in more detail.  The ADR/T advised that it could be expected that the COVID-19 induced IT cultural change would to a significant degree be permanent and there were already associated financial savings being made e.g. in reduced travel and subsistence costs.

There was some debate about the use of the term efficiencies and the ADR/T sought to reassure Members that the efficiencies that would be delivered through the investment in the IT Strategy primarily focussed on streamlining administrative processes and improving productivity.  Some Members requested that they be permitted to record a vote for, against or abstention on the second recommendation to this report, this was permitted and the voting was as follows:

Recommendation 2:

FOR:                      12 (Cllrs Barnes, Dowling, Galley, Lambert, Osborne, Peltzer Dunn, Pragnell, Sheppard, Smith, Taylor, Theobald, Tutt)

AGAINST:              0

ABSTAIN:              5 (Cllrs Evans, Grimshaw, Powell, Scott, West)

RESOLVED: The Fire Authority therefore agreed to:

       i.          approve the IT Strategy 2020-2025 and the use of existing funding of £7.79m, including the use of the previously Fire Authority approved P21 ESFRS IT integration funding £2.26m.  Total approved funding £10.05m.

      ii.          note that further funding will need to be identified through delivering financial efficiencies and the budget setting process in order to resolve the combined one off and ongoing cost pressure of £2.25m (excluding CRM HSV & Business Safety) or £3.53m (including CRM HSV & Business Safety);

     iii.          note costed proposals for the development of CRM HSV and Business Safety are due to be presented to SLT in October 2020;

    iv.          note that regular reports on the delivery of the IT Strategy will be presented to SLT and the Scrutiny & Audit Panel; and

      v.          that business owners should now develop business cases, defining the business benefits, costs and efficiency savings for the projects included in the Strategy.