Agenda and minutes

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 3rd April 2014.

The Minutes of the meeting of the Panel held on 3rd April 2014 were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

To receive from Members declarations as to disclosable pecuniary, non disclosable pecuniary or non-pecuniary interests in relation to any Agenda item. Please see Notes 1 and 2 below.

No declarations were received.

To consider the decision made by the Cabinet on 10^th April 2014 on The Future of Members’ IT, which has been called-in by the Panel, as described in the report by the Head of Legal and Democratic Services.

(Councillor B S Chapman, Executive Councillor for Customer Services, was in attendance for this item).

(Councillors Mrs B E Boddington, J P Morris and R J West were also in attendance for the discussion on this item).

Following the publication of the Cabinet’s Decision regarding the future of Members IT on 11th April 2014, the Panel gave this matter further consideration. The reasons for the Call-In together with the options which were available to the Panel and a summary of their previous discussions on the matter were set out in a report by the Head of Legal and Democratic Services (a copy of which is appended in the Minute Book).

By way of introduction, the Executive Councillor reminded the Panel of the background to the proposals. He referred to the need to gain Public Services Network compliance, to respond to the support expiry deadline for Windows XP and to improve on Members’ existing IT experience. Councillor Chapman then updated Members on the latest developments and the reasons for them. Members were advised that the estimated saving from not providing all Members with laptop/desktop PCs and associated equipment had been re-evaluated at £42k and that there would be additional savings relating to the withdrawal of printed agenda and reports, printers, broadband and consumables. Furthermore, the need to pay for future upgrades/development would be removed.

Having recognised the need to cease their connectivity to the Council’s network for security reasons, Members were informed that the Authority had secured two domain names which could be used for their email addresses to create a consistent and professional approach. The Panel discussed the systems used by neighbouring authorities and the ways in which these operated. The Council would assist Members to set up the most useable system of accessing their emails, tailored to each Councillor’s preferred way of working.

In response to a question by a Member, an update on those issues, which had been raised at the previous meeting, was provided. These included the arrangements for the transition to the new way of working, associated training and support, the encryption of confidential information and testing of file sizes. In terms of the decision to allow iPads to be purchased from Members allowances, it would be possible to offer interest free loans for this purpose. In response to a request that Members should be able to use the Council’s electronic address book from their own equipment, it was reported that while the Council had a high degree of confidence that this would be possible, in the event that this was not the case, alternative ways of providing this information would be investigated.

Some Members reiterated the previously expressed point that the requirement  to provide their own IT equipment would deter potential candidates from standing for election. However, other Members were of the view that, given that the basic allowance payable was currently in the region of £4k per annum, it was reasonable to expect Members to purchase their own equipment over their term of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 111.