Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Rehana Ameer, Aaron D’Souza, Emma Edhem, Mary Durcan, Tim Hailes and Paul Singh.

There were no declarations.

To agree the public minutes and non-public summary of the meeting held on 22 September 2022.

RESOLVED, That – the public minutes and non-public summary of the meeting held on 22^nd September 2022 be approved as an accurate record, subject to recording James Tumbridge apologies but noting that he joined the meeting on line.

There were no items.

Joint report of the Town Clerk and Chief Operating Officer.

The Committee received a joint report of the Town Clerk and the Chamberlain which provided updates of outstanding actions from previous meetings. The report also provided information of the Sub-Committee’s proposed work plan for forthcoming meetings.

RESOLVED, That  –the report be noted.

Verbal Update of the Chief Operating Officer.

The new Director of Information and Technology (DITS) addressed the Committee setting out his ambitions for the department; highlighted below:

a)      The role of the Department of Information and Technology in making a positive impact on people’s lives, and the opportunity it presents to serve the City of London Corporation, which has both national and London-wide focus.

b)      Over past few weeks, the Director had met with colleagues from across the organisation; including the Schools, the City of London Police and the Barbican Centre, and had been very pleased to note the appetite for joint working.  DITS would seek to enable this via improved infrastructure, digital data and technology; making processes leaner, and reaching staff in the field, offices or working hybrid.

c)       Enhancing data to support decision making and exploring machine learning and data science best practice to help address the City’s key challenges.

d)      To make the best use of our existing investments, and seek a more modern approach to training, regardless of where colleagues are based.

e)      To mitigate cyber risk to the lowest possible level, by strengthening the working relationship with the Cyber Team in the City of London Police, and collaborating with the National Crime Agency and National Cyber Security centre

During questions from the Committee, the following points were noted :

a)      There are currently some 400 applications within the organisation, including different versions of the same one.   DITS have been set a target to reduce this by half, thereby making efficiency savings and reducing cyber risk to the organisation.

b)      One key deliverable, in the short term, is a target state architecture for the City. A recruitment exercise in underway and, in the future, the architecture will be based on business requirements, rather than presented in a technical format.  Work was underway on

Report of the Chief Operating Officer.

The Committee received a report of the Chief Operating Officer which provided the latest DITS Service update.

Members welcomed the latest high-level iteration of this report, which was by exception. Members noted some lapse from the time of reporting the September statistics to the time of the agenda publication, and that P1 and P2 in the report related to third party and older technologies.  The Director explained that that the organisation has legacy technology, which is both expensive and difficult to support.  In order to resolve this, one site had been closed on 31st October 2022, making a saving of £100,000 per annum.  Members also noted that the PSNN IT health check generally shows an improvement, year-on-year.   The Director further explained that the integration between I-Trent and the Active Directory would iron out bugs in contact details. 

RESOLVED, that – the report be noted.

There were no questions.

There were no items of urgent business.

MOTION - That under Section 100(A) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Part I of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act.

RESOLVED - That under Section 100(A) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public be excluded from the meeting for the following items on the grounds that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in Part I of the Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act.

To agree the non-public minutes of the meeting held on 22 September 2022.

RESOLVED, That – the non-public minutes of the meeting held on 22^nd September 2022 be approved as an accurate record.

There were no items.

Report of the Executive Director of the Environment Department Commissioner, City of London Police.

The Committee received a joint report of the Executive Director, Environment and the Commissioner, City of London Police.

Report of the Chief Information Security Officer.

The Committee received a report of the Chief Information Officer.

Report of the Chief Operating Officer.

The Town Clerk advised that reports 15.1 and 15.2 on this agenda had been moved to non-public, with the reasons for the exemption (commercial sensitivity) included on the Committee’s web page.  The decisions would be recorded in full in the non-public set of minutes.

The Committee considered and approved the following two reports of the Chief Operating Officer:

15.1        DITS Local Area Network Security Project

15.2        Segregated Tunnelling Project

Report of the Chief Operating Officer.

Report of the Chief Operating Officer.

Report of the Chief Operating Officer.

The Town Clerk advised that the following report had been moved to non-public, with the reasons for the exemption (commercial sensitivity) included on the Committee’s web page.  The decisions would be recorded in full in the non-public set of minutes.

The Committee received a report of the Chief Operating Officer.

There were no non-public questions.

There was no other non-public business.

To agree the confidential minutes of the meeting held on 22 September 2022.

RESOLVED, that – the confidential minutes of the meeting held on 22^nd September 2022 be approved.

Report of The Chief Operating Officer.

(Confidential Item to be Circulated Seperately).

The Committee received a report of the Chief Operating Officer.