Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councilllors Bennett, D’Albuquerque, Grace and Robinson.

Members are requested at a meeting where a disclosable pecuniary interest or personal interest arises, which is not already included in their Register of Members' Interests, todeclare any interests that relate to an item on the agenda.

Where a Member discloses a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest, he/she must withdraw from the meeting room, including from the public gallery, during the whole consideration of any item of business in which he/she has an interest, except where he/she is permitted to remain as a result of a grant of a dispensation.

Where a Member discloses a personal interest he/she must seek advice from the Monitoring Officer or staff member representing the Monitoring Officer to determine whether the Member should withdraw from the meeting room, including from the public gallery, during the whole consideration of any item of business in which he/she has an interest or whether the Member can remain in the meeting or remain in the meeting and vote on the relevant decision.

No declarations of interest were received.

Minutes of the meeting held on 1 March 2022

RESOLVED:

That the Minutes of the meeting held on 1 March 2022 be confirmed as a correct record.

Presentation by the Executive Director of Corporate Resources and Customer Services  

The Committee received a presentation from Helen Spreadbury, Senior Manager ICT & Digital that provided a security update on the Cloud Migration.

Ms. Spreadbury highlighted:

•       That a Cloud First Strategy was required because Sefton’s ICT Infrastructure was aging and required significant investment to ensure it could scale up to meet increasing demands for ICT resource and capacity

·       One of the objectives of the Strategy set out in 2016 was to provide an Integrated Cloud Service

·       The Cloud Migration Position Statement

·       The forecast end position

·       The next steps once migration was completed  would include decommissioning and right sizing of the data centre at St Peters House; the removal of legacy applications no longer in use; planning the decommissioning of legacy applications in line with the implementation and deployment of new solutions such as telephony; the rationalisation of the remaining applications onto a smaller server footprint; that it would be necessary to align the forward plan for procurement to those applications that could not currently be moved to Cloud; and that the above work would inform the final sizing of the new Data Centre at Bootle Town Hall

Members of the Committee asked questions/commented on the following issues:

·       Activities by other local authorities.

·       GPs and other primary care providers should be considering Cloud Migration.

·       Assurances that servers were not provided by hostile nations.

·       Up-to-date licenses and systems.

·       Assurances against anti-hacking, website issues and outages.

·       Security aspects of Microsoft Azure.

·       Use of pen-drives by the Council.

·       The carbon footprint produced by the central servers.

·       The reduction of 4 servers to 2 servers.

·       Multi-factor authentication, including fingerprints.

·       Device security.

·       Use of laptops by Council users outside the UK.

·       Generators within the Council.

·       Power surges and alarms.

RESOLVED:

That Helen Spreadbury be thanked for her informative presentation.

Report of the Chief Legal and Democratic Officer

The Committee considered the report of the Chief Legal and Democratic Officer seeking the approval of the Committee of the Work Programme for 2022/23; the identification of potential topics for scrutiny reviews to be undertaken by a Working Group(s) appointed by the Committee; the identification of any items for pre-scrutiny by the Committee from the Key Decision Forward Plan; and providing an update on the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

Further to Minute No. 40 (2) of 1 March 2022 the Committee was advised that following consultation with Members, a preference had been expressed for the Committee to undertake a review of “Corporate Communications and Covid-19” rather than “Cyber Security” as a topic for review; and scoping documents in respect of the two topics were attached as appendices to the report.

Members of the Committee asked questions/commented on the following

issues:

·       the Procurement for the Provision of Enforcement Agent Services on the latest Key Decision Forward Plan.

RESOLVED: That

(1)      the Work Programme for 2021/22, as set out in Appendix 1 to the report, be approved;

(2)      Corporate Communications and Covid-19 be selected as a topic for review by a Working Group; and the following Members be appointed to the Working Group:

·       Councillor Byrom; and

·       Carlin;

(3)      the Chief Legal and Democratic Officer be requested to contact other Members of the Committee to seek their willingness to serve on the Working Group;

(4)      the contents of the Key Decision Forward Plan for the period 1 July– 31 October 2022, be noted; and enquiries be undertaken to provide further information to Members of the Committee on the Procurement for the Provision of Enforcement Agent Services; and

(5)      the update on the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority Overview and Scrutiny Committee be noted.

Report of the Chief Legal and Democratic Officer

The Committee considered the report of the Chief Legal and Democratic Officer that included the most recent report from the Cabinet Member – Regulatory, Compliance and Corporate Services.

Members of the Committee asked questions/commented on the following issues:

·       The Council Tax Energy Rebate. Staff were commended for dealing with the volume of eligible households.

·       The Member Development Programme and Member take-up statistics for courses, particularly on-line courses. Members considered that some courses were a little lengthy. The Workforce Learning and Development Manager could be invited to attend the Committee to discuss Members’ training and development.

·       Responses to queries by the One Stop Shop.

·       The Elections Act 2022 and the requirement of photographic identification in polling stations. The impact of the legislation could be reported to a future meeting of the Committee.

RESOLVED:That

(1)      the update report from the Cabinet Member – Regulatory, Compliance and Corporate Services be noted;

(2)      the Workforce Learning and Development Manager be invited to attend the Committee to discuss Members’ training and development; and

(3)      the impact of the Elections Act 2022 and the requirement for voters to produce photographic identification in polling stations, be reported to a future meeting of the Committee.