In a delegated Officer Key Decision, Newham Council has approved a £577,627 contract with Agilisys Limited to migrate the council's applications and services from on-premises to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. This move is part of the council's wider technology modernisation plans and its separation from the OneSource shared IT service with the London Borough of Havering. The contract will run for seven months, starting in July 2025.

Cloud Adoption

The Corporate Director of Resources, Conrad Hall, approved the award of a contract to Agilisys Limited through the Crown Commercial Services (CCS) G-Cloud 14 framework¹, Lot 3 Cloud Support.

The council is aiming to exit its on-premises infrastructure platform as part of its technology modernisation plans. The systems and applications currently hosted on this platform will be moved to a combination of vendor and public cloud services. The primary goal is to improve the security, resilience, and performance of these systems.

Azure was selected as the preferred public cloud platform because it is highly compatible with the council's existing on-premises systems. Newham Council has already invested significantly in Microsoft technologies, and consolidating this relationship is expected to make the technology easier to manage and provide commercial advantages.

Most of the contracts associated with the on-premises infrastructure platform have similar end dates, concluding by May 2026. These agreements can be terminated without penalty if the contractual notice period is observed. This creates a compelling timeframe to complete the exit, minimising the period where the council incurs costs for both the on-premises platform and public cloud services.

The council requires a partner with expertise and experience in completing similar migrations to assist with the project. The London Borough of Havering has completed a similar migration exercise over the past eight months by working with Agilisys.

The contract with Agilisys will also include preparation of the Azure tenancy in accordance with best practices. This will enable progress toward other technology modernisation objectives, such as automation and improved use of data analytics.

Agilisys was the only supplier available through the CCS G-Cloud 14 framework. Agilisys was appointed by Havering to undertake their cloud migration and have successfully executed the contract, demonstrating a high level of expertise and experience. Agilisys have committed to assigning the same team to deliver the Newham contract if the work can commence from July 2025, which means the work can start almost immediately after award.

Agilisys have committed to assigning the same team to deliver the Newham contract if the work can commence from July 2025, which means the work can start almost immediately after award.

Engaging the same Agilisys team is advantageous because they are already familiar with the council's on-premises technology environment, as it is currently shared with Havering. They have also established working practices with the council staff who will be involved with the migration following completion of the work for Havering.

The council considered and rejected the following alternative options:

• Do nothing: The planned improvements to the security and resilience of the systems currently hosted on-premises, including Housing and Social Care, would no longer be possible. Additionally, the council would need to retain the on-premises infrastructure platform and renew or extend the associated contracts, but would not incur costs associated with hosting these systems in the public cloud.
• Migrate the applications using in-house resources: Council staff do not have the necessary skills, experience, or capacity to deliver the migration within the required timescales to avoid the need to further renew or extend contracts associated with the on-premises infrastructure platform.

The delivery of the council's eight pillars² and the corporate delivery plan relies on reliable and modern ICT that its officers use to undertake their responsibilities, and that enable council services to operate. ICT is now integral to enabling business objectives and changes and having an appropriate cloud platform in place is critical to the development and continuity of these services.

The cost will be funded from the cloud migration portion of the overall £5.6 million capital budget approved by cabinet to fund the various disaggregation activities required to deliver the split of ICT services from OneSource.

The officer decision record notes that key decisions made by officers cannot be implemented until the 6th working day following the date of publication of the decision to allow members to consider whether or not to call in the decision.