Councillor Anthony Hunt, Leader and Executive Member for Strategic Leadership, was scheduled to make a decision regarding the use of the Digital Reserve to fund a digital solution for project, risk, and performance management. Torfaen County Borough Council and Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council are looking to modernise their project and risk management processes. The council was asked to approve funding for 50% of the project's one-off costs, with Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council funding the remaining 50%.

Digital Project Management Solution

Torfaen County Borough Council was asked to consider a proposal to fund 50% of the one-off £111,500 implementation costs (excluding VAT) for a digital project, performance, and risk management solution. The other 50% of the costs would be funded by Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council.

The report pack stated that both councils currently use a combination of spreadsheets and unintegrated tools for project, performance and risk management, which creates inefficiencies. The councils have engaged with iCoTech Services to develop a Microsoft Power Platform based solution. An initial demonstration of iCoTech's PPM accelerator, iCoPlan, was conducted in May 2025, and a workshop was held in June 2025 to gather detailed requirements from both councils.

The proposed solution comprises three integrated modules:

• iCoPlan Project Portfolio Management: A tool to plan, track and manage projects and programmes.
• iCoView Strategic Planning (Corporate Objectives) Dashboard: A performance management dashboarding tool to monitor progress against corporate plan objectives and key performance indicators.
• iCoRisk Enterprise Risk Management: A risk logging and tracking system that will capture project-level risks and allow escalation of significant risks to a central corporate risk register.

The report pack noted that implementing a unified system across multiple organisations would require significant change management, including training for staff. It also noted that external expertise is necessary to configure and deploy the solution effectively, and that SRS ICT Security and Information Governance colleagues have been involved to ensure the solution complies with all necessary policies.

The following stakeholders were consulted on this proposal and are supportive:

• SRS Chief Operating Officer
• Joint Chief Executive (Torfaen / Blaenau Gwent)
• Deputy Section 151 Officer (Torfaen CBC)
• Section 151 Officer (Blaenau Gwent CBC)
• Jason Lewis, Director of Corporate Services (Torfaen CBC)
• Monitoring Officer (Torfaen CBC)
• Business and Democratic Support Services Manager (Torfaen CBC)
• Portfolio Delivery Lead (Torfaen CBC)

The report pack stated that procurement has been undertaken in line with policy, utilising a Crown Commercial Service framework¹. iCoTech Services was identified as the top-ranked supplier able to meet all key requirements within budget via the G-Cloud framework² on the Digital Marketplace.

The report pack recommended that Councillor Anthony Hunt approve the funding of 50% of the total one-off costs of this project from the Council's Digital Reserve, with the remaining 50% to be funded by Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council.