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Joint IT Committee (Brent, Lewisham and Southwark) - Tuesday 8 July 2025 6.00 pm

July 8, 2025 View on council website
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Summary

The Joint IT Committee (Brent, Lewisham and Southwark) met to discuss updates on the Shared Technology Service (STS), including service level performance, project updates, and procurement matters. The committee was also scheduled to discuss a cyber security update in a closed session. The meeting was scheduled to be held virtually via MS Teams.

Shared Technology Services Update

The committee was scheduled to receive an update on the performance of the Shared Technology Services (STS). The report pack included a summary of key performance indicators from March to May 2025:

  • Priority 3 (P3) operational incident issues had improved by around 5%.
  • Priority 4 (P4) operational request calls service level agreements (SLAs) had been maintained.
  • The second lowest amount of open issues and requests for staff since the inception of the Shared Service had been achieved, despite having the largest user base on record.
  • A new Customer Experience survey to gain improved feedback on customer interactions was in place, and feedback was actively being acted upon since January 2025.
  • The Telephony Service Desk had been re-procured with tighter service levels, starting on 1 April 2025.
  • Recent audit reviews had been positive, with the lowest amount of outstanding audit actions remaining.
  • The new Procurement Act was in effect from February 2025 onwards.
  • Laptop projects were underway for Brent, and the Lewisham and Southwark business cases had been approved.
  • A new third party Security Operations Centre went live at the end of January 2025 for all three councils.
  • A new vulnerability management tool was purchased for laptops to give better insights and automated deployment, with future Joint Committee Cyber Updates to contain greater detail.
  • Savings had been agreed for 2025/26, and discussions were underway regarding further saving requirements in 2026/27.

The report pack also included details of service level performance, including:

  • A chart illustrating the volume of open calls within the STS operational queues over the past year, noting a peak between October and December 2024, with open tickets surpassing 2,200, and a consistent decline since then, culminating in the current total of 1,465 open tickets.
  • A breakdown of open tickets raised prior to 2024, with the majority of the remaining pre-2025 tickets related to project requests that necessitate system upgrades.
  • A graph identifying the trends of logged tickets into STS queues over the last 3 years and into 2025, noting that the number of supported users has grown from 10,500 users in 2020 to 12,693 in 2025 (21% increase).
  • Details of eight Priority 1 (P1) incidents related to STS infrastructure, with 61% (5 of 8 MI restored service within 4 hours).
  • Details of 20 Priority 2 (P2) calls raised in STS Hornbill operational queues during this reporting period, with the target KPI being 30 or less per month.
  • Details of Priority 3 (P3) incidents logged during this reporting period, with STS Operational teams (front office include the service desk and on-site teams) logging 9,763 with an overall SLA performance of 85%, and all STS teams (back office includes infrastructure and EUC teams) logging 10,126 with an overall SLA performance of 84%.
  • Details of Priority 4 (P4) requests logged during this reporting period, with STS Operational teams logging 6788 with an overall SLA performance of 90%, and all STS teams logging 10,126 with an overall SLA performance of 89%.
  • Information on onsite support, noting that the onsite teams across the three partner councils typically take care of four major functions: local on-site support in the main partner offices (Brent Civic, Lewisham Laurence House and Southwark Tooley Street), non-main office site support, Starters, Movers and Leavers (SMaL) acceptance and processing, and conducting and organising hardware repairs, both in and out of warranty.
  • Information on telephony support, noting that Node4 serves as the primary telephone service provider for the IT Service Desk.
  • Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) survey results for the reporting period, with an average score of 4.4 out of 5.
  • Overall call number statistics, noting that STS had 36,158 tickets logged between March May 2025 for all council Application/Service teams as well as the Shared Service, against 40,947 in Dec 24 – Feb 25.
  • Service improvements, including the expansion of the rollout of a Teams chat service between the on-site team, executive office and the cabinet office in Lewisham, and enhanced Qminder support.
  • Continuous service improvement, with a focus on improving the Hornbill Customer Portal.

The report pack also included details of risks, audit progress, a technology road map, project updates, procurement updates, and council updates.

Project Updates

The report pack included updates on several projects, including:

Future Laptop Windows 11

Microsoft will end support for Windows 10 in October 2025, and this project is part of STS transition strategy to ensure all systems and operations continue without interruptions or security risks linked to unsupported software and hardware.

The report pack noted the following in relation to the laptop refresh programme:

  • LGA: Completed roll out of laptops and upgrade to windows 11, with one mop up session in July. Lessons learnt and project closure to be completed.
  • Brent: Deployment of new Windows 11 laptops is underway and STS have so far completed delivery of over 1300 new laptops to staff.
  • Lewisham: Business case signed off and procurement underway. The tender closes on 15 July and confirmation of award to the successful supplier is expected to take place the week commencing 28 July.
  • Southwark: Procurement complete and contract awarded to Insight on 29 May, hardware currently stored in the supplier's warehouse. Activities around the implementation of a service wrapper are in progress. STS presented Windows 11 laptops to Southwark colleagues on 8 May, receiving feedback on 19 May. The focus is now on preparing for User Acceptance Testing (UAT) by addressing non-standard applications, configuration, and standardisation tasks.

The report pack also noted that biometrics is a feature of Windows 11, and that DPIAs1 and EIAs2 have been completed to provide reassurance that this is an optional feature and does not need to be implemented.

Laptop Always On VPN

The council's remote working system, Microsoft Direct Access, was useful during the pandemic; however, it experienced speed and connection limitations, and Microsoft has announced that it will no longer develop this product. Consequently, a new solution, AlwaysOn VPN, has been introduced to provide seamless connectivity to all Microsoft services.

The report pack noted the following:

  • Southwark's AlwaysOn VPN deployment was completed successfully in November 2023.
  • The deployment of AlwaysOn VPN has been incorporated into the LGA laptop refresh project and is currently being deployed with the new hardware running Windows 11.
  • Brent has successfully deployed AlwaysOn VPN on the new Windows 11 laptops to over 1300 officers.
  • Following the Brent model Lewisham will deploy AlwaysOn VPN as part of the deployment of new laptops and upgrades to Windows 11 operating system.
  • VPN is a module of a wider group of security tools, Southwark have expressed their interest in Zero Trust Security, which we are conducting a proof of value exercise which will be completed late 2025.

Network Upgrades

The proposed solution involves implementing SD-WAN3 technology to replace the current dedicated leased line site-to-site circuits.

The report pack noted the following:

  • Brent has 48 connections in scope across 38 sites, with 3 completed and 7 removed from scope.
  • Lewisham has 34 connections in scope across 31 sites, with 3 completed, and 3 removed from scope.
  • Southwark has 119 connections in scope, which has now increased to 150 over a total of 112 sites. To date 51 connections have been completed, and 10 removed from scope.

Windows 2012 Upgrades

All councils operate multiple Windows 2012 servers, with their support stated to end in October 2023, and it is crucial that these systems are upgraded.

The report pack noted the following:

  • The Brent server estate, which originally comprised 218 servers running Windows Server 2012, is scheduled to have 211 servers either decommissioned or in the process of being decommissioned by the end of June 2025. The remaining 7 servers are currently undergoing this process with target dates agreed with the Project Sponsor.
  • Lewisham server estate which originally comprised 212 servers running Windows Server 2012, is scheduled to have 196 servers either decommissioned or in the process of being decommissioned by the end of June 2025. The remaining 16 servers are currently undergoing this process with target dates currently being reviewed with the Project Sponsor.
  • Southwark server estate originally comprised of 87 servers running Windows 2012. Of those servers identified for STS migration, 30 were out of scope, 56 have been decommissioned. The remaining server requires third-party action.
  • LGA Windows 2012 server migration project has competed successfully.
  • The Lewisham Homes Windows 2012 server project consists of 89 servers, 52 of which have been decommissioned. The project continues to progress the residual servers.

Procurement Updates

The report pack included the following procurement updates:

  • The new Procurement Act went live on 24 February 2025, with significant changes to the governance processes followed and the routes to market.
  • Tender templates are currently being updated in conjunction with the new Procurement Act and updated changes to Brent's Constitution. The main changes are in relation to the Low Value threshold, which has increased from £25k to £30k meaning anything below £30k will not require a full procurement exercise.
  • Procurement is devising a Category Strategy across the subcategories within Digital and IT, and STS are also looking at exploring additional explicit clauses within new Contracts to mitigate lost opportunities such as Price Adjustment clauses, Social Value reimbursements etc.
  • The Procurement team are working with key suppliers on how they will deliver Social Value within the contracts, and have created an additional clause to be inserted into all new contract above £100k in value, allowing the authority to hold the supplier responsible for the monetary reimbursement of any Social Value that is not delivered.
  • The tender for the provision of laptops for Southwark has concluded, and Procurement have also successfully negotiated a discount with the Supplier for the proposed Service Wrap costs.
  • The tender for provision of Laptops for Lewisham was published on the 17 June 2025 and will close on 15 July 2025.
  • Service Desk Telephone Support STS Service Desk Telephone Support Tender was awarded to Node4.
  • STS approved and Awarded of the contract to Qualys reseller for a Vulnerability Management Tool.
  • STS awarded a contract for 12 months for the Provision of Cybersecurity Solution to CrowdStrike.
  • Procurement has received sign off on renewal of FP for the Provision of Web security Solution to Force Point, and it has been awarded for 12 months.
  • Contract awarded for 12 months after seeking 3 quotes for the Provision of Cloud storage for LB of Southwark to Netapp.
  • Brent have decided not to renew and are migrating to 8x8 functionality for Netcall, while Lewisham and Southwark have extended for an additional 12 months.
  • The Councils have reduced the number of licences for Egress Secure email, and are reviewing process and using Microsoft Purview to reduce the number of Egress Licences even further in the future.
  • Lewisham have added F5 add-on with Brent & Southwark also to join for F5 Microsoft Licences.
  • Current contracts end 31st March and will require reprocurement for Microsoft Unified Support, and OMG sign off is required to proceed.
  • Hornbill Provision of Service Desk Platform 12 months awarded following internal sign off.
  • Confirmation awaited from Southwark if this is still required for the Provision of Ivanti (User Workspace Manager), as the Contract ends 30th April and will require re-procurement.
  • STS have extended Ricoh UK Limited: Printing Services by 12 months, with Two further 12-month permissible extensions are available as part of the existing contract, and a project is being created to carry out soft market testing in readiness for contract renewal in 2026.
  • Contract renewal for 24 months for Telecoms Expense Management Service, with Pricing negotiated with Nuvoli.
  • STS have renewed the unified comms (back-end telephony) with 8x8 for 8x8 telephony (back end), and Partners are procuring their own Contact Centre Applications.
  • Procurement to be executed shortly for Microsoft Licences for Lewisham, awaiting sign off on governance report.
  • Procurement to be executed shortly for Microsoft Licences for LGA, awaiting confirmation of item quantities from LGA.
  • Procurement are actively reviewing existing Contracts and retrospectively embedding Contract Management Plans.
  • The Procurement Team have recently recruited a Procurement Officer and Licence & Subscriptions Officer in line with previous staff leaving, and are leading a diverse team and focusing on mentoring staff for both short- and longterm objectives.
  • Following the Social Value Delivery Review in March 2025, Procurement have been working closer with suppliers to review these commitments and evidence delivery or alternative solutions to where delivery has not happened, and are adding in a bespoke explicit clause to all new contracts to ensure that suppliers are held financially responsible for the monetary value of these commitments and will reimburse the authority for non-delivery.

Council Updates

The report pack included digital updates from each of the three councils:

Brent Digital Update

Examples of projects delivered from March - June 2025 include:

  • Exceeded 2026 connectivity target of 62% (currently 68.6% Full Fibre coverage).
  • Over 190 devices have been provided to digitally excluded residents via the Digital Support Fund for Children and Young People and Resident Digital Support Fund.
  • Over halfway through the review and streamlining of Social Care Mosaic forms and workflows, with multiple efficiencies identified and CYP already starting to implement the system workflow changes.
  • Digital inclusion support for businesses is being rolled out as part of a Digital Support Programme for SMEs, with businesses able to access free advice, webinars and tutorials. The programme will run through until September 2025.
  • Staff Digital Skills support is being provided through a dedicated work programme, with drop-in sessions for staff available on how to make their digital tools work best for them.
  • Three RPAs have gone live; 8x8 analytics report; hospital discharge details uploaded to Mosaic; Debt recovery report. All have increased efficiency in teams and reduced errors.
  • Housing Management Repairs: Successfully deployed the Responsive Repairs and Planned Works (Section 20) onboarding new contractors and SORs uplift to 8.0. This includes new hierarchy setup based on Regions (East/West) for Properties/Blocks & Estates.
  • I4B & First Wave: Implemented patches and creation on new dashboards in Dynamics.
  • The intelligent Automation team has deployed 2 high and 2 low complexity automations; Adult Social Care- Schedule B Payment; Hospital Discharge to MOSAIC 2; Rent Officer Missing Report and Chief Exec's Complaints. All have increased efficiency in teams, reduced error and enabled faster data driven decisions.
  • Brent Councils First Conversational AI parking chatbot is now live, helping residents navigate their parking experience with ease and confidence, reducing the pressure on the parking team to respond to enquiries.
  • Brent now has 157 active users with copilot licenses helping with productivity at work.
  • A new Corporate Booking System for use across the council went live called Bookings Plus, helping to increase revenue generation from setting up preferred payments and direct debits early.
  • New contract with 8x8 Contact Centre Solution successfully went live 1st May, phase two to follow in due course to refine the current setup and leverage additional platform capabilities for maximum benefit.

Lewisham Digital update

  • Fibre installation completed to approx. 12000 Lewisham Homes properties to provide residents with the option to enable fibre broadband services.
  • Completion of 4G/5G connectivity mapping to identify 'not spots' for mobile coverage in MapThat.
  • Initiation of Strategic Infrastructure Fund (SIF) fibre installation project to enable digital CCTV in communal properties and hostels.
  • Set up and roll out of IT&D Roadmap we now have a comprehensive record of all projects and significant products within the department.
  • Go live of procurement for 2600 laptops and support.
  • Completion of IT Project Audit.
  • Generic Fixed Penalty Notices.
  • Digital projects: Pest Control, Bulky Waste, MASH Multi Agency safeguarding hub, Body Storage mortuaries, Discretionary Housing Payments.
  • Single View (SystemC) live and providing specified ASC, CSC & Education and YJ data in one place.
  • Groupwork (SystemC) new module is now live, supporting family centres/children's centres and youth services.
  • Bottomline PTX Drive transitioned to AMT the support & management of software that enables BACS transfers.
  • Modern.Gov transitioned to AMT the support & management of Modern.Gov.
  • File Transfers/Scripting transitioned to AMT the development & support of all file transfer processes (prompted by Server/SQL 2012 Programme).
  • Automation developed & introduced for LAS/LCS user management.
  • Utility (software) developed & implemented to monitor and alert on key server health.

Southwark Digital Update

  • The team is working to improve Southwark's partnership with Shared Technology Services (STS), and draft updates to the agreement, covering governance, procurement, and financial principles, have been shared with partners and are being reviewed.
  • The team is addressing digital inclusion and infrastructure expansion, and there is an ongoing request to extend SD-WAN connectivity and support from STS to communal areas in housing estates and school spaces, currently stalled pending decisions at OMG and JMB.
  • Cybersecurity remains a high priority, and the council has strengthened its cyber security posture by implementing a formal third-party supplier assurance framework, introducing Risk Ledger for continuous monitoring, and embedding robust access, audit, and incident response controls across all supplier engagements.
  • The Modern Data Platform (MDP) is transitioning to Microsoft Fabric, and Access Database(s) replacement has been prioritised in line with the introduction of the Windows 11 laptops, and are being replaced with PowerApps in the main.
  • RPA is being actively deployed across Southwark Council to streamline repetitive, rule-based tasks, and Southwark has standardised on UiPath for RPA deployments.
  • AI is being scaled across the council to support smarter, data-driven services, and is central to the TDS 2025–2026 goals, with a focus on expanding automation, improving service delivery, and reducing costs.
  • ZTNA is a critical component in the Southwark cyber security and infrastructure modernisation strategy, and is being positioned to replace the legacy F5 VPN, which has been flagged as inadequate and a cyber risk.
  • The Laptop Refresh Programme is a major transformation initiative to modernise the council's digital estate, and involves replacing ageing Lenovo laptops with Microsoft Surface devices and upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11 across all departments, including libraries and leisure centres.

Inter Authority Agreement

Some revisions have been proposed to the IAA and these are to be presented to the Joint Management Board in February 2025.

Strategy Update

The existing STS Strategy was presented to the Joint Committee in October 2024.

Financial Considerations

The report pack noted the following financial considerations:

  • The total budget of £17.84M for FY 2025/26 is made up of a combination of non-controllable expenditure of £8.6M and controllable expenditure (staffing and consultancy) of £9.1M.
  • The YTD spend (April 25) for FY 2025/26 is £3.19M against a full-year budget of £17.84M.
  • The YTD Spend for the year excludes recharges which are made up of bulk stock orders, project costs that are covered by different funding pots and rechargeable consumables.
  • STS are in discussions with councils for additional savings which will start in 2026/27, and these are likely to be more substantial and will have operational impacts.

Cyber Security Update Report

The committee was also scheduled to discuss a report providing an update on the Cyber Security status, threats, and mitigations identified in relation to the Shared Technology Services. Due to the confidential nature of the information, the press and public were scheduled to be excluded from this part of the meeting.


  1. A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) is a process to help identify and minimise the data protection risks of a project. 

  2. An Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) is a process to ensure that a policy or project does not discriminate against any protected groups. 

  3. SD-WAN stands for Software-Defined Wide Area Network, which is a virtual WAN architecture that allows enterprises to leverage any combination of transport services – including internet broadband, cellular, and dedicated private lines – to securely connect users to applications. 

Attendees

Profile image for CouncillorStephanie Cryan
CouncillorStephanie Cryan  (Labour and Co-operative) Cabinet Member for Equalities, Democracy and Finance •  Labour •  Rotherhithe
Councillor Amanda De Ryk London Borough of Lewisham
Profile image for Councillor Barrie Hargrove
Councillor Barrie Hargrove  Labour •  Peckham
Councillor Mili Patel London Borough of Brent
Councillor Jake Rubin

Topics

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