Agenda item

Report of the Chamberlain.

The Committee received a report of the Chamberlain, concerning the future device purchasing for the City of London Corporation and its Institutions, intending to unify the vendor and models of hardware deployed.

In terms of the funding for the device refresh, funding had been identified for parts of the organisation, such as the Members Refresh budget, and the Barbican Centre and Guildhall School of Music and Drama Capital Fund. The remainder would be part of the 2025/26 budget, and the procurement route would be identified before the budget would be agreed in March 2025. The recommendation before Members was for the strategy for the device refresh.

The Committee heard that officers would be working with Commercial Services on the best procurement route for the 6,500 devices.

Officers had identified a preferred device, which would be procured through the appropriate procurement gateways. This had indicative pricing. There would be work on the logistics of rolling out the new devices, including where the devices could be serviced, and there had been consideration of pop-up sites.

For the old devices, these had a National Cyber Security Centre approved software which wiped the device and provided certification as proof. If a device contained highly sensitive information, the device would be crushed.

A Member raised a question on procurement, the response of which had to be heard in non-public session. The Committee agreed, that following its satisfaction to the response received to this question in non-public session, it would agree the recommendation as listed in the report, and that this be recorded in the public minutes.

Later in the meeting, following the response received in the non-public session, the Committee agreed the recommendation as listed in the report.

RESOLVED – That Members agree the move from a mixed estate of five different vendors to a single vendor for the wider Corporation – including Institutions.