northlincs.gov.uk

17        (17) VIREMENTS 2015-16 – The Director of Policy and Resources submitted a report which sought approval for changes to revenue and capital budgets for 2015-16 as part of the council’s policy of active budget management.

On 24 February 2015 Council approved the revenue and capital budgets for the 2015/16 financial year.  The report gave details of virements that required Cabinet Member approval.

Resolved – That the virements at paragraph 3.1 of the report be approved.

18        (18) IT BUSINESS CONTINUITY & DISASTER RECOVERY UPDATE – The Director of Policy and Resources submitted a report which sought approval to provide an update on enhancements to the council’s IT business continuity and disaster recovery arrangements.

The loss of business critical systems and key data was recognised as a strategic risk.

The council managed two data centres; one located at the Civic Centre in Scunthorpe and one at Hewson House in Brigg. Loss of key data and major IT outages were recognised as strategic risks.

Although storage replication was in place, loss of the server infrastructure would still mean that significant disruption would occur if the Hewson House data centre suffered an outage for any reason such as flood, fire or major power failure.

A project was underway to address this risk through replication of the virtual servers between the two data centres. It was explained that this would provide an ability to restore server infrastructure in minutes as opposed to hours/days in the event of a significant data centre failure.

Resolved – That the outcomes of the project to implement site to site replication across the council’s data centres together with the associated timescales be noted.

19        (19) PROCUREMENT OF TEMPORARY AGENCY WORKERS – The Director of Policy and Resources submitted a report which sought approval of a procurement plan for the supply of temporary agency workers.

The council’s supply arrangement for temporary agency workers was due to end on 30 November 2015 and decisions were needed to put in place a new agreement to provide continuity of supply and adequate resourcing of key service activities.

On 1 October 2011 the Agency Workers Directives came into force. The purpose of the directive was to provide temporary agency workers who had been placed for 12 weeks with equal treatment rights in terms of basic working and employment conditions similar to directly employed staff.  The implementation of the directive had major implications for costs and use of agency workers across the council.

In November 2011 the then cabinet member for Finance, Procurement and IT resolved to award a four year framework to Matrix SCM Ltd via MSTAR – a national framework providing managed service provision for the supply of agency workers. The arrangement had been developed by Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation (ESPO) on behalf of the Pro5 cohort of local government public buying organisations.

The MSTAR option was chosen as the best solution to meet the council’s needs.

The suppliers on MSTAR² were all market leading managed service providers (MSPs) helping to improve control, safeguarding and visibility as well as delivering efficiency savings. Three different service models were available:

•  Lot 1 – Neutral vendor (supply chain management)
•  Lot 2 – Master vendor (supply chain management)
•  Lot 3 – Supply Chain Optimisation (Hybrid) – customers can define a sourcing strategy using a combination of models depending on their resourcing objectives

There were seven approved suppliers (MSPs) available through Lot 1 of MSTAR²: Comensura, de Poel, Manpower, Matrix, Pertemps, Randstad and Reed.

As part of the procurement shared service a joint procurement undertaken and led by North East Lincolnshire Council (NELC) was proposed.

Details of the seven approved suppliers and their procurement options were outlined within the report.

Resolved – (a) That a mini completion undertaken jointly with NELC via MSTAR ^{2 (} Lot 1) leading to the appointment of a single managed service provider/neutral vendor as set out in section 2 of the report be approved, and (b) that an information report detailing the outcome of the procurement be submitted to the cabinet member following the award of contract.

Note: Where there is no report this is because it is exempt, as it contains information which is considered to be of a confidential nature, as detailed in the Local Government (Access to Information) Act.