An ICT Infrastructure for the Slough Borough Council - Report Example

IT INFRASTRUCTURE PROPOSAL REPORT FOR THE SLOUGH BOROUGH COUNCIL By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date IT Infrastructure Proposal Report for the Slough Borough Council 1. Background Slough Borough Council (SBC) in its ICT strategy tries to demonstrate its commitment to delivering contemporary public services at reduced cost and also to lessen waste. The SBC’s ICT strategy is in line with the Government ICT Strategy but, it strongly focuses on developing strong governance, standardizing its ICT, and integrating professional standards. Beforehand, service directorates, according to Slough Borough Council (2012), utilised their own requirements and acquired tailored ICT solutions and systems to meet the needs. In consequence, SBC was left with ICT solutions that were costly and inflexible, and which resulted in a fragmented time-consuming and costly ICT estate that was difficult to support and integrate. A ‘SWOT’ analysis performed by IS&T staff established that the major threat facing SBC was its inability to cross-skill personnel with the aim of offering cover for different adopted applications. As mentioned by Slough Borough Council (2012), ICT can bring forth savings through increasing efficiency and productivity of the public sector. ICT can lead to numerous benefits: it allows the delivery of services in a novel and more cost-efficient manner; it facilitates accessibility to online transactional services that consequently improves the lives of the citizens and businesses; enables employees to work flexibly. 2. Nature of this Report 2.1 Statement of the Proposal Report’s Objectives Strong ICT governance would be crucial in ensuring that the Council’s Strategy is delivered successfully to make sure that the projects’ delivery is punctual and that the risk of project waste/failure is reduced. The objective of this proposal report is: To determine how mobile platforms can be used to deliver selected ICT services for SBC To determine what ICT Governance requirements SBC should seek to address when offering these mobile-based services How the Two Question Address the Four Objectives The core objectives of the Council’s ICT Strategy include strengthening governance, reducing waste and project failure, developing a common ICT infrastructure, and utilising ICT to enable as well as deliver change. The proposed ICT strategy will demonstrate how mobile-based services underpinned to ITIL V3 would help the Council reduce project failure by promoting connectedness while mobile platforms would be utilised to deliver changes in terms of service provision and allocation of resources. Besides that, the mobile-based services will allow for a common and shared ICT infrastructure. Given that mobile platforms would allow people to access services ubiquitously it would result in improved and strengthened governance, 2.2 Description of the Scope and Any Relevant Limitations The Council’s ICT Strategy demonstrates the identified business IT requirements that could enable the organisation to realise its goals. The strategy was developed from commissioned and in transit projects as well as from discussions with senior managers regarding the future direction. Key priorities and outcomes have been identified by the ICT Strategy that the Council is trying to realise. The ICT Strategy has identified the ICT principles and the key projects that would enable the Council successful realise the IT Services vision. Still, the strategy has some limitations; for instance, it has not focused on the specific core hardware of the ICT infrastructure. The strategy has not demonstrated how the lives of citizens would be made easier and simpler, considering that this can only be achieved if all services, as well as information, are digitalised. 2.3 Statement of Assumptions The ICT Strategy has made some assumptions: for instance, it has been assumed that ICT is crucial for the effective government operation as well as services delivery to businesses and citizen. Another assumption is that ICT can result in savings by increasing efficiency and productivity of public sector. Other assumptions include: ICT allows services to be delivered in more cost efficient manner ICT makes life more convenient and simpler for businesses and citizens through access to online transactional services ICT frees employees to work flexibly. 3. ICT Governance Framework 3.1 Identification of any ICT Governance Framework The SBC’s ICT strategy 2012-2015 is based on the ITIL V3 strategy since it provides an integrated set of key priorities and best practices for the management of ICT Services according to the requirements of the Council. As mentioned by Calder (2008), the earlier version was ITILv2 and is still utilised by many organisations across the globe. Clearly, the SBC’s ICT strategy focuses on planning, designing, implementing as well as improving ICT services which are suitable for the needs of the citizens and businesses. The ITIL V3 under which the ICT Strategy is underpinned offers a consistent, comprehensive, as well as coherent ICT framework for best practice as well as service management. As a result, this promotes high-quality approach for realisation of business efficiency as well as effectiveness I ICT services. As pointed out by IT Governance Institute (2008), the objective of ITIL was to underpin rather than dictate the organisation’s business processes. SBC’s ICT strategy 2012-2015 is based on the ITIL framework as evidenced by its description on the processes, functions, and approaches through which citizens and businesses could base their own practices. 3.2 Justification of the Choice of an ICT Governance Framework Adopting the ITIL V3 would make sure that the ICT services offered by the Council are aligned appropriately to the needs of the citizens and businesses all for the stated visions as well as goals. ITIL V3 has been selected because its management structure is stronger and can bring forth efficiencies as well as help the Council in its quest for continued development improvement. More importantly, its balanced scorecards and key performance indicators would facilitate the formalisation of the ICT governance. The ITIL V3 would offer the Council a stronger basis for success and would facilitate the realisation of the Council’s mission to empower and support citizens and businesses. Additionally, ITIL V3 embodies the proactive management practices in achieving the Council’s optimal ICT infrastructure in offering dependable, reliable, as well as continually improved services. The ITIL V3 would identify the management processes for controlling as well as managing applicable interfaces in the council with the aim of ensuring ICT services consistency, reliability and availability. With ITIL V3, the Council’s ICT managers would be able to identify as well as prioritise resources for critical problems affecting the IT infrastructure. Additionally, it would be easier to track relationships between network availability and systems changes. 4 Analysis of the Slough Borough Council ICT strategy 2012-2015 4.1 Analysis While performing internal audits in 2011 to determine the areas of both Information Governance as well as IT in the Slough Borough Council, the reviews offered a limited assurance that the needed ICT systems were present. The audits demonstrated that the Council did not have a Board or formal process to review as well as approve work requests of IT project or to prioritise the work needed as well as ensuring there is a capacity for the ICT to deliver. The audits also demonstrated that cost benefits analysis and business case were not performed in a standardised way and that the council had failed to perform post- implementation reviews which are crucial for improving the learning/improvement processes. The ICT strategy proposes the establishing of IT as well as Information Governance Board to agree on programmes as well as set priorities for technology and information deployment that concentrate on major gains on efficiency and enhanced outcomes. The ICT strategy also highlights the need for Risk Management since cyber security threats have turned out to be more complex and frequent (Slough Borough Council, 2012). The ICT strategy also demonstrated the need for improving procurement, investing in asset and services database, creating Green ICT, and promoting ‘Agile’ Project Management. All these factors are key components of the Council’s ITIL V3 based service considering that implementing them successfully could lead to proactive management of ICT service issues. Besides that, the Council’s ICT infrastructure can be managed through ITIL V3 best practice processes. 4.2 Identification of Key Gaps 1. The strategy has not focussed on specific core infrastructure hardware considering that the Council should make some major replacements, upgrades, or new hardware requirements before investing in the new ICT infrastructure. 2. The lack of formal process or Board for reviewing as well as approving the IT project; as a result, it becomes challenging for the Council to receive work requests or to even to prioritise the work needed. Therefore, the existence of informal processes can trigger numerous failures around budgeting activities. Lacking a board or formal processes which are crucial for cost planning, there is likelihood that the Council’s expenditures are normally overestimated or underestimated. As mentioned by PMAlliance (2016), lack of formal processes can lead to a cumulative effect on the ICT project team; thus, leading to high-stress levels. 5. The Proposal 5.1 How mobile platforms can be used to deliver selected ICT services for the Slough Borough Council The Slough Borough Council can utilise the mobile platforms to bring about enhances communication and administrative efficiency with the aim of supporting service delivery. The mobile platforms would undoubtedly bring the Council to the citizens and also offer an unprecedented level of accountability and transparency in the process. The Council can use the mobile platforms to deliver services, whereby, citizens could access different services, like checking voter registration status, processing real estate taxes payment, searching for employment opportunities, and many others. Such services can be accessed on all Android powered phones, iPhone, Google Android, Blackberry, as well as Windows Mobile. Furthermore, the Council can utilise the mobile platforms, as mentioned by Centre for Technology in Government (2016) to offer real-time information on travel, transit, and traffic conditions. Furthermore, users would be able to access weather alerts and forecasts and get travel times for tunnels as well as bridges. The mobile platforms can be used to improve the citizens’ health through utilisation of SMS text messages to coordinate and facilitate activities of health care providers at the community level. The Council can also use mobile platforms for citizen engagement, whereby the Council will engage with citizens by providing new ways of interacting. The mobile platforms can enable the Council’s to engage visitors as well as promote tourism. The mobile platforms can act as a tour guide as well as the mobile brochure and offer events listing in a timely manner. The mobile platforms can be used for allocating ICT resources and offering staff support. The mobile delivery can be achieved by upgrading the staff skills given that the mobile platform skills are different from the general desktop or Web skills. According to Scupola (2012), the mobile platforms can help the local government deliver information to the citizens and businesses such as warning, alerts, updates on natural disasters, and even traffic updates. The Council can use the mobile platforms to disburse funds under the schemes like pensions, welfare, and social security. Without a doubt, the mobile platforms can make the Council’s ICT services more flexible and make the businesses and citizens more informed since they can easily access information ubiquitously from their mobile devices. The mobile platforms would enable the Council’s to improve emergency response system by placing a new computerised alert system to replace the existing manual system. This will facilitate the notification of the emergency personnel when changes happen in the landslide as well as flood forecast. The Council would be able to share this information through social networks, tablets and mobile phones. As pointed out by Symonds (2013), the local municipal councils can utilise mobile platforms to provide real-time location data on trains, buses, as well as trams and also the information regarding delays. To deliver the selected ICT services, the Council should make sure that the mobile tools are widely accessible to the citizens (Raja et al., 2012 ). This can be achieved by creating institutional capacity, creating an ICT strategy for mobile platforms, make mobile technology affordable, and enable mobile payment. More importantly, the council should adopt standards for content and technologies, develop shared facilities, mobilise as well as train users, and encourage public-private partnerships. In terms of ICT infrastructure; The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) would play an important role in providing insight as well as integrating systems from one end to another. Application of SOA principles would enable the Council to govern and manage the IT transformation. This would lead to numerous benefits like holistic business insight, cloud enabled solutions, seamless integration, as well as agility to externalized application programming interfaces (APIs). The Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is a set of principles and rules for the integration of various applications together in a bus-like infrastructure. The EBS would enable the Council to integrate various applications by placing the communication bus in their midst and subsequently allowing all the application to communicate to the bus. This system will enable the council to improve agility by providing a well defined and simple pluggable system that scales well with the mobile platforms. The ESB would offer a means for the Council to leverage the existing systems and integrating them into the new applications through its transformation and communication capabilities. Cloud services cover different resources which the service provider (in this case the Council) delivers to the end users through the internet. The cloud services would enable the customers to access services on an on-demand basis and when unneeded, they are shut down. The cloud-based technology would enable the Council to access storage, software, compute as well as other crucial ICT infrastructure elements devoid of burden associated with upgrading and maintaining them. 5.2 The ICT Governance requirements that the Slough Borough Council should seek to address when offering these mobile-based services As mentioned earlier, Adopting and adapting ITIL V3 would enable Slough Borough Council to meet objectives in spite of continued financial pressures. Clearly, ITIL V3 would play a crucial part in delivering services successfully especially in consideration of the fact that council was able to offer exemplar ICT service during times of austerity. The ITIL V3 framework can be grouped into five sections: ITIL service strategy where all stages of the service lifecycle have to concentrate on the business case, with business service management principles, requirements and goals. The ITIL service design offers direction for the IT documents, architectures and policies’ production as well as maintenance. The ITIL service transition places emphasis on the role of change management and offer process activities and guidance for the transition of services in the business environment. The ITIL service operation concentrates on control as well as delivery process activities rooted in the control points of service delivery and selection of service support.   The ITIL continual service improvement which emphasises on the process elements that take part in the introduction as well as identification of service management improvements and the issues that surround service retirement. The mobile-based services would be ITIL v3 compliant solution across the Council’s areas where managing ICT services is an important factor for the successful realisation of ICT strategic objectives, operating resourcefully towards high-quality standards. The mobile-based services would be based on the process automation principles, offering support to various strategic service governance scenarios by means of automation as well as improved configurability of IT processes. With mobile-based services, the citizens and business would enjoy improved user experience, facilitated through mobile technology. As mentioned by Lewis (2011), the ICT governance framework should be maintained since they ensure the alignment with enterprise governance, good practices installation as well as compliance assurance with external requirements. 6. Recommendations In order for the Council to realise the proposed ICT Strategy outcomes, it must facilitate open engagement with the businesses, citizens, and communities. This can be achieved by ensuring improved openness, transparency, as well as inclusiveness of the Council’s operations and processes by ensuring the inclusive and open processes are part of the ICT strategy and taking steps with the aim of addressing the existing ‘digital divides’ and ensuring that there is no digital exclusion. Besides that, the Council should develop a data-driven culture by developing frameworks and improve its risk management approach to successfully address ICT privacy and security issues by espousing appropriate and security measures. 7. References Calder, A., 2008. Developing an IT governance framework. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.ncc.co.uk/article/?articleid=13371" http://www.ncc.co.uk/article/?articleid=13371 [Accessed 15 May 2017]. Center for Technology in Government, 2016. Government in a Mobile World. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/issuebriefs/mobile" https://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/issuebriefs/mobile [Accessed 15 May 2017]. IT Governance Institute, 2008. Aligning CobiT® 4.1, ITIL® V3 and ISO/IEC 27002 for Business Benefit ® A Management Briefing From ITGI and OGC. Rolling Meadows, IL: IT Governance Institute. Lewis, B., 2011. IT governance and mobile technology. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/IT-governance-and-mobile-technology" http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/IT-governance-and-mobile-technology [Accessed 15 May 2017]. PMAlliance, 2016. Lack Of A Formal Approach To Project Management. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "http://pm-alliance.com/lack-of-a-formal-approach-to-project-management/" http://pm-alliance.com/lack-of-a-formal-approach-to-project-management/ [Accessed 15 May 2017]. Raja, S. et al., 2012. Making Government Mobile. In Information and Communications for Development 2012: Maximizing Mobile. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. pp. 87–102. Scupola, A., 2012. Innovative Mobile Platform Developments for Electronic Services Design and Delivery. Hershey, PA: IGI Global. Slough Borough Council, 2012. Slough Borough Council ICT Strategy 2012 - 2015. Strategy Report. Slough: Slough Borough Council. Symonds, D., 2013. The benefits of going mobile: better services and well informed citizens. [Online] Available at: HYPERLINK "https://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2013/sep/13/benefits-mobile-services-citizens" https://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2013/sep/13/benefits-mobile-services-citizens [Accessed 15 May 2017]. Read More