The Digital Services Committee was scheduled to discuss the Digital, Information and Technology Service's (DITS) performance, the Chamberlain's Department business plan, and the progress of Programme Sapphire. They were also scheduled to consider the use of Copilot for M365 across the City of London Corporation. In addition to these topics, the committee was expected to elect a chair and deputy chair, and make appointments to other committees.

Chamberlain's Department Business Plan

The committee was scheduled to consider the Chamberlain's Department Business Plan for 2025/26. The Chamberlain's Department supports the City of London Corporation and its partner organisations. The plan's priority workstreams are focused on:

• Legal and statutory duties
• Transformational projects to drive systems and process improvements to increase automation and self-service
• Improving commercial maturity to manage risk, improve compliance and deliver savings
• Data and insights to improve social return on investment

The plan included several key objectives and priority workstreams, including:

• ERP Programme, now entitled Project SAPhire
• Commercial Transformation
• Income Generation
• DDaT Strategy
• Replacement Freedom System
• FSD Transformation FIT Strategy
• Programme Governance
• Review the Chart of Accounts
• PSTN Switch Off Programme
• Internal Audit Quality Assurance and Improvement Programme
• Pensions Dashboards
• Corporate Insurance Programme Tender

The report noted that the Business Plan has been designed within the current agreed resource base, but that outcomes from Ambition 25 may have an impact on this¹.

Digital, Information and Technology Service (DITS)

The Digital Services Committee was scheduled to receive several reports relating to the Digital, Information and Technology Service (DITS).

Service Delivery Summary

The Digital Services Committee was scheduled to receive a report providing an overview of the current service provision as managed by DITS. The report noted that the services managed by DITS for the City of London (CoL) and City of London Police (CoLP) have been stable, although investigation into ongoing CCTV issues continues.

The report included performance figures for March 2025:

• CoL: Incident Response 93% Met, Incident Resolve 97% Met
• CoLP: Incident Response 87% Met, Incident Resolve 93% Met

The report also noted that there were no Priority 1 (P1) Incidents reported for CoL during this reporting period which were within the responsibility of DITS Resolver groups, but that there was 1 x P1 Incident reported for CoLP during this reporting period which was within the responsibility of DITS Resolver groups:

72466 – PNC within Niche not working. A reboot of the server resolved the issue

The report also provided an update on key service provider status:

• Wavenet/Daisy experienced 2 x P1 incidents across Col and CoLP in March.
• Barracuda experienced 1 x P1 incident which affected CoLP
• Jenoptik experienced 1 x P1 incident which affected CoLP

The report also highlighted service improvements and highlights, including the Service Management team working with the COLP Device refresh team and Service Team Application support, to ensure that all new/replacement devices which are deployed as part of the CoLP device refresh have all relevant details recorded in the Configuration Management Database (CMDB).

Business Plan End of Year Update

The Digital Services Committee was scheduled to receive a report providing an end of year update on progress against the 2024/25 Business Plan for the Digital & IT Service.

The report noted that DITS had insourced all 10 Agilisys Services which were previously outsourced, delivering reoccurring savings of £903k annually to the organisation, and that work to update the Digital, Data and Technology Strategy has now completed.

The report also noted that a Lighthouse project was carried out earlier in the year, which demonstrated the value of Data to the organisation, and that following on from this, transformation funding has been secured to build a single CRM for the wider organisation.

The report stated that a direction of travel has been agreed for the future network and that a full refresh will be carried out with a wireless first approach, and that procurement of a partner to deliver the future network has commenced.

The report also noted that the initial procurement exercise for the Managed Print solution was abandoned as there were concerns raised by the Print Room regarding the suitability of the preferred supplier, and that following a short review period, the new procurement exercise went live in January with the Print Room and the Managed Print Service split into two lots and an updated specification.

The report stated that the SharePoint migration has now completed, and that best practice around this migration and lessons learnt are being shared with the City of London Corporation's institutions².

Co-Pilot Proof of Value Report

The Digital Services Committee was scheduled to receive a report summarising the findings of a recent discovery exercise completed by Phoenix Software Limited, into the use of Copilot for M365 across several City of London Corporation departments.

The report noted that since September 2024 the City of London Corporation has made Copilot for M365 available to users on a departmentally funded basis, and that at the time of writing this report, the number of licenced users has increased to 306 across 8 different departments.

The report stated that the City of London Corporation has derived significant value from the adoption of Copilot for M365, with the impact of Copilot increasing month on month as users integrate Copilot into their everyday working and find new and innovative ways to utilise Generative AI.

The number of Copilot actions taken each week has now increased to more than 4000, with around 250 ‘Copilot Assisted Hours’ each and every week. Some the most frequent actions over the last 4 weeks include meeting summaries (2,972), e-mail generation (1,441) and documents created (478), as well as 3,583 prompts being used with Copilot Chat.

The report included a summary of departmental findings, including:

• The Environment Team have successfully integrated Copilot into their daily workflows, with one member of staff using Copilot for drafting documents and reviewing Python code, saving up to 90% of the time previously spent on these tasks.
• The Department for Community and Children's Services have found Copilot to be a game-changer, particularly for business support staff who save 1.75 hours per meeting on transcription tasks.
• The Innovation and Growth Team have achieved dramatic efficiency gains with Copilot, reducing bulletin creation time by 83% and search times by up to 90%.
• The City Surveyor’s Department have seen early-stage benefits from Copilot, particularly in meeting summarisation and recruitment preparation, saving 40 minutes per task.
• The Chamberlain’s Department have integrated Copilot into meeting management and administrative tasks, saving significant time and doubling business analyst capacity.
• The Town Clerk’s Department have seen mixed results with Copilot, saving one to two hours per meeting for some clerks and one to five hours weekly on searches.

Quarterly Programme Sapphire (ERP) Update Report

The Digital Services Committee was scheduled to receive a report providing an update on the progress of Programme Sapphire³, the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Programme.

The report noted that the Programme has made good progress and is tracking to both plan and budget, and that the first go live milestone (the Learning Management System) has been achieved and the remaining Wave 1 deliverable are progressing well.

The report stated that the scale and complexity of the programme requires additional risk mitigation for Wave 2 (HR & Payroll) and Wave 3 (Finance), but that there has been no change in the plan and the focus is on taking proactive steps to mitigate any delivery risks.

The report also noted that the principle of “Adopt not Adapt” is being maintained and there have been minimal changes proposed, and that a quality assurance partner (SAP) has been appointed to provide additional confidence and help drive the transformation work.

The report included a high level structure chart, a communications and engagement roadmap, and a project plan.

Appointments to Other Committees

The Digital Services Committee was scheduled to appoint one member to serve on the Projects and Procurement Sub-Committee. The Projects and Procurement Sub-Committee provides dedicated scrutiny for all City Corporation and City of London Police procurement contracts as prescribed in the Procurement Code, with a view to driving value for money, and also provides dedicated scrutiny for all City Corporation and City of London Police Projects as prescribed by the Projects Procedure.