Issue - meetings

To consider the way forward with regards to technical provision for Members

Members' Portal

Councillor Annwen Hughes presented the sub-group's work on the Members' Portal. She noted that restructuring work had been carried out to improve the accessibility of the information that was there. She added that efforts to increase the use would continue, in addition to efforts to gather information that would be useful to members.

Office 365

A short presentation was given by Councillor Annwen Hughes, who was a member of the Sub-group of this Committee which was formed to discuss elected members' IT issues. She noted that some members had trialled a provision via the Office 365 system with a cloud provision. The provision had solved a number of technical problems that hindered the work of members, and this was reiterated by other members who were part of the sub-group.

The Senior IT Manager noted that there was an additional cost of approximately £9 per head for the system if it was to be distributed to all members. In response to a question about data protection, he noted that the Council held accreditations from the PSN and the CSG for government data protection, and that the Council would never compromise on data protection.

Whilst discussing distributing the new provision to Council members, it was noted that it needed to be ensured that effective support would be available to members who were not confident in using the new provision. In response, the Senior IT Manager noted that the service would provide the necessary technical support for all users, in addition to assisting with the set-up of the new system and sharing useful information.

In response to a suggestion that the system should be provided to all members immediately, the Democratic Services Manager noted that discretion should be exercised, although the IT service was willing to do so. She added that lessons had been learnt from attempting to act too quickly in the past.

It was proposed and seconded to extend the Office 365 provision to the rest of the members of this Committee initially.

RESOLVED -

1.         To offer Office 365 provision to Members of the Democratic Services Committee

2.         That the Information Technology Service manage the roll-out of the provision further, depending on solving any problems arising

3.         That any useful lessons and information gathered when setting up the provision is shared with the Members in moving forward.