To consider approval of the South and East Lincolnshire Councils Partnership Digital Strategy and ICT Roadmap.

1.       That the South & East Lincolnshire Councils Partnership Digital Strategy and ICT Roadmap at Appendix A be approved;

2.       That the findings of the Joint Scrutiny Task Group (Appendix B) be noted.

A report was presented to enable consideration of a shared Digital Strategy and ICT Roadmap for the South & East Lincolnshire Council’s Partnership to provide direction of travel for future Digital/ICT developments. 

During his introduction the Portfolio Holder for Community Safety, Leisure and Culture and Carbon Reduction highlighted when the South & East Lincolnshire Councils Partnership was formed, the Business Case approved by each Council identified key areas of activity to be taken forward to facilitate the Partnership ambitions in relation to improved services to communities and greater service efficiency.

This report brought forward a Digital Strategy and ICT Roadmap (Appendix A) for the South & East Lincolnshire Councils Partnership.  This Strategy would replace existing ICT/Digital Strategies in each Partnership Council.

The implementation of a shared Digital Strategy and ICT Roadmap was one of the identified top 10 priorities for the Partnership in the approved work programme.

The Strategy had been reviewed by a Partnership Scrutiny Task Group.  The findings and recommendations from that Task Group were appended to the report at Appendix B.  The Portfolio Holder extended his thanks to those involved in the joint scrutiny work and was pleased to report that all recommendations from that work had been accepted by the Portfolio Holders and were detailed at paragraph 2.5 of the report.

Ongoing development/investment in Digital and ICT – in an ordered way – would ensure the Councils maximised the benefits of technology to deliver services and improve service efficiency.

RESOLVED

1.       That the South & East Lincolnshire Councils Partnership Digital Strategy and ICT Roadmap at Appendix A be approved;

2.       That the findings of the Joint Scrutiny Task Group (Appendix B) be noted.

Reasons:

For the Councils to maximise the benefits of Digital/ICT in driving efficiency and better serving residents, a shared Digital Strategy for the Partnership, supported by an ICT Roadmap, is required to set out the approach to be taken to future system alignment, investment and development.   The Partnership is in a fortunate position in that Public Sector Partnership Services (PSPS) is the Digital/ICT provider to each of the three Councils.  A shared Strategy for the Partnership (and PSPS) will benefit PSPS by enabling the company to better plan and deploy resources to focus on common Digital/ICT priorities that support the Partnership’s ambition rather than there being competing priorities from individual Councils.

Other options:

Do nothing – each Council continuing to have its own approach to Digital/ICT is possible but wouldn’t be in line with the approved Partnership Business Case.  Digital/ICT is a key ‘enabler’ to achieve much of the ambition set out in the Business Case and is identified as an action in both the Work Programme and Annual Delivery Plan (both of which have been approved by Council).